"Dear child, if that crowned Judas there had taken you at your word, do you think I would have outlived you by the space of a second?" She looked fixedly into his eyes. "You are resolved?" He smiled back at her. "I am as stubborn as a mule and no pleadings will move me." She looked over her shoulder with a shudder. "Dearest, the candle flickers in the wind. There is a dagger in your girdle. Slay me and yourself." "You mean it?" he gasped, and she answered firmly: "By God's Mother and God's Son." A sudden, wonderful thought flashed through Villon's mind. He had won love, he could not hope to win life, but at least he might so manage as to die a soldier's death and not a knave's. He whispered to her eagerly: "Then we will spoil old Louis' pleasure yet. Lore, will you marry me here at the foot of the gallows?" She answered him: "With all my heart." Instantly he turned and left her and strode towards the throne. "King, I crave your patience, but your sentence must tarry and turn, for I claim to marry this lady." Louis smiled derisively. "It is too late. Sing your neck-rhyme and have done, for your noose is too large for a wedding ring." Villon gave him back smile for smile. "Sire," he said, "I am a Master of Arts of the University of Paris and as such have the right in extremis to any sacrament of the church. I have lived a confirmed bachelor, but now I have a mind to change my state. Find me a priest, King Louis." Olivier stooped to the king. "He speaks the truth, sire. He can claim this right" Louis leaned forward interested. "What do you hope to gain by this?" Villon answered calmly: "The right to die like a soldier by the sword, not like a rogue by the rope." A murmur of approval stirred the silent crowd, but it died away as Katherine suddenly advanced and stood, a white figure like a fair lily, between the king and Villon. "Nay, you gain more than this. I am the Lady Katherine de Vaucelles, kinswoman of the royal house, mistress of a hundred lands, Grand Seneschale of Gascony, Warden of the Marches of Poitou. In my own domains I exercise the High Justice and the Low. This man is of humble birth, and when I marry him he becomes my vassal. Over my vassals I hold the law of life and death." Villon dropped on his knees beside his lady. Louis clapped his thin hands together as a man might applaud a play. "You are a bold minion and you have a quick wit. But if you marry this gaol bird you decline to his condition. Your high titles fall from you, your great estates are forfeit to the crown and you and he must go out into exile together; the beggar woman with the beggar man." Katherine turned to Villon where he knelt beside her. "'Tis a little price to pay for my lover." Villon looking up into her eyes, questioned her: "Do you think I'm worth it, Kate? 'Tis a big price to pay for this poor anatomy." She repeated her words. "'Tis a little price to pay for my lover. Do you doubt me?"