Villon moved uneasily, as if resenting the interruption to his slumbers that the firm touch had disturbed, and he grumbled sullenly, without looking up, "What is it?" The woman bent towards him again and whispered "A word with you." Villon rose wearily to his feet, and as he did so the woman drew back towards the open centre of the room, which now appeared to her to be empty. Her nerves were too highly strung to note anything surprising in the disappearance of the two visitors. If she thought of them at all it was only to be glad that they had gone their ways and left the place so lonely. Villon followed her almost unconsciously, too sleepy for wonder. Suddenly the woman threw off the folds that muffled her face and the vision that had haunted him flashed on his frightened eyes, the vision so proud, so beautiful and young. He crossed himself as he questioned in a voice that sounded strangely alien to him, "Are you real?" "Do I look like a ghost?" the fair woman answered. In an ecstasy of joy Villon fell on his knees as he seldom kneeled in prayer, while he gasped, "If this be a dream, pray Heaven I may never wake." The girl drew from her bosom a little piece of folded parchment and held it out towards him. "You wrote me these verses. My elders tell me that poets say much and mean little; that their oaths are like gingerbread, as hot and sweet in the mouth and as easily swallowed. 'Are you such a one?" Villon rose to his feet. He knew that this exquisite presence was flesh and biood; that her speech was human speech. He answered her very gravely-- "My words are life. I love you!" "Just because I show a smooth face?" A great wave of rapture swept over the poet's soul and his brain seemed as busy with words as a hive with bees. He spoke slowly like a man inspired. "Because you are the loveliest she alive. If all my dreams of loveliness had been pieced together into one perfect woman she would have been like you. All my life I have read tales of love and tried to find their secret in the bright eyes about me--tried and failed. I might as well have been seeking for the Holy Grail. But when I saw you the old Heaven and the old Earth seemed to shrivel away and I knew what love might mean, and God-like desire and God-like surrender. The world is changed by; your coming, all sweet tastes and fair colours and soft sounds have something of you in them. I eat and drink, I see and hear in your honour. The people in the street are blessed because you have passed among them. That stone on the ground is sacred, for your foot has touched it; or the dusty booth at the corner, which your sleeve has brushed in passing. I love you! All philosophy, all wisdom, religion, honour, manhood, hope, beauty lie in those words--I love you!"