"Here is the knot of ribbon which you flung to me in the Fircone Tavern. Oh, pity me! I am François 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 François Villon and yet no longer he, for my old evil self is dead. I am François 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." Villon sprang to his feet. "Whatever my fate is," he cried, "you shall know the truth." Turning to where the released conspirators stood apart, he called to them peremptorily: "Guy! Eene! All of you, come here!" Amazed to be thus summoned in their own names by so great a personage as the Grand Constable of France, the thieves crept forward timidly and, in obedience to Villon's commanding gestures, gathered about him as he turned to them, pressing his face near to their faces, and cried: "Look at me closer--closer. Don't you know François Villon in spite of this new spirit shining in his eyes?" René de Montigny gave a cry of recognition. "I should never have known you. You are so strangely changed." Guy Tabarie endorsed him. "Still,'tis his dear old countenance." Katherine watching the scene in sick despair, turned piteously to the king. "Sire, sire, is this true?" Louis, who had been watching all with unmitigated satisfaction, answered fleeringly: "Most true, pretty mistress. You disdained me for this." With blazing eyes and trembling hands Katherine moved across the grass to where Villon stood. "Pitiful traitor, why did you live this lie?" Villon pleaded desperately: "I loved you." Katherine's anger flamed into a great fire. "Do not shame the sweet word. I hate you! To think the face that I have learned to love should mask so base a heart!" Then as Villon drew a little closer to her, in an agony of entreaty, she struck out at him with both hands, beating him on the breast in an unconquerable fury. Villon bowed beneath the blow while she raged at him: "You have stolen my love like a thief, you have crucified my pride. I hate you! Go back to the dregs and lees of life, skulk in your tavern, forget, what I shall never forget, that so base a thing as you ever came near me!" The king was by her side in an instant and whispering into her ear: "Is this the course of true love?" She swung upon him in scorn. "Sire, you have wreaked a royal revenge upon a woman. There are no tears in my eyes yet, but I pray they will come that I may weep myself clean of this memory." With clasped hands and set lips she moved away from Louis and stood apart in the moonlight, a fixed and rigid figure of despair. Louis stepped to where Villon stood in stricken anguish and whispered to him: "I am afraid you will hang to-morrow, Master Villon." Villon threw back his head defiantly.