Even at the thought, Katherine flung herself swiftly at his feet, divinely gracious in her surrender of dignity as she kneeled to him with uplifted imploring hands and eyes. "My lord," she cried, "will you listen to a distressed lady?" Villon stooped and caught her white fingers and drew her to her feet. "Not while the lady kneels," he said gently, and he looked with a strange apprehension into the frank, bright eyes of Katherine. Would she know him for what he was, he wondered. He read no recognition in her sweet eyes. Katherine returned his gaze, unflinchingly regarding him as a great lady might regard some stranger her equal of whom she could ask a favour. "She does not know me," Villon's delight cried in his heart, and at the thought his spirit fluttered with fierce exaltation. The Lord of Moncorbier, who was Grand Constable of France, might say many things that were denied to the lips of François Villon. Katherine pleaded warmly: "There is a man in prison at this hour for whom I would implore your clemency. His name is François Villon. Last night he wounded Thibaut d'Aussigny--" Villon smiled a contented smile. "Thereby making room for me," he suggested. Katherine went on unheeding: "The penalty is death. But Thibaut was a traitor sold to Burgundy." "Did this Villon fight him for his treason?" "No. He fought for the sake of a woman. He risked his life with a light heart because a woman asked him." "How do you know all this?" "Because I was the woman. This man had seen me, thought he loved me, sent me verses--" "How insolent!" "It was insolence--and yet they were beautiful verses. I was in mortal fear of Thibaut d'Aussigny. I went to this Villon and begged him to kill my enemy. He backed his love tale with his sword--and he lies in the shadow of death. It is not just that he should suffer for my sin." Villon turned suddenly upon the beautiful suppliant. A thought had come into his brain so whimsical and so fantastic that it made him as dizzy for an instant as if the smooth grass beneath him had yawned into a sheer and evil precipice. "Do you by any chance love this Villon?" A little wave of disdain rippled over the girl's calm face. "Great ladies do not love tavern bravos. But I pity him, and I do not want him to die, though, indeed, life cannot be very dear to him if he would fling it away to please a woman."