"Look into my face," he said. "Look well. Do you see nothing there
that reminds you of other hours?"
Katherine smiled divinely.
"Of happy hours in this rose garden."
Villon insisted fiercely:
"No, no! Of a dark night, a tavern, a cloaked woman, a sordid fellow
dreaming sottishly by the fire, a prayer, a love-tale and a promise,
a crowd of bullies and wantons, a quarrel, a fight with sword and
lantern in the dark, a breast knot of ribbon flung from a gallery--"
Katherine recoiled a little, with a horror in her eyes.
"What are you trying to tell me?" she asked.
Villon dropped on his knees with a groan.
"Here is the knot of ribbon which you flung to me in the Fircone
Tavern. Oh, pity me! I am Fran?ois Villon."
Katherine pressed her hands to her forehead.
"I can hear what you say, but it makes no mark on my brain."
Villon's words ran fast from him:
"I am Fran?ois Villon and yet no longer he, for my old evil self is
dead. I am Fran?ois Villon who served you with his sword, who
praised you with his pen, and who loves you with all his soul."
The girl's whole body shook with fear as she answered:
"It isn't true! It isn't true! I don't believe you.
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