Trois-Echelles stopped fumbling his beads and advanced towards her, extending his hand. "Give it to me to spend on masses?" he asked sanctimoniously. Petit-Jean danced between them. "Lend it to me for drink money," he urged. The old woman paid no heed to their proposals. Her tired eyes had caught sight of the grim structure in wood which usurped a place in a familiar scene. She shaded her eyes and peered at it, asking: "For whom do you build this gallows?" The glum hangman answered gloomily: "Oddly enough, we don't know. 'Make me a gallows here,' says the Constable, 'in the open place, and sieges for the king and his courtiers.'" Mother Villon, her simple curiosity easily satisfied, dropped her informant a curtsey and hobbled slowly up the steps into the church. Petit-Jean stretched himself again and yawned. "I'll to sleep and dream of hanging a king." Trois-Echelles put a lean finger to his lean chin. "Treason, friend, if Tristan heard you." Petit-Jean's eyes twinkled. "Well, let's say an archbishop," he said. Trois-Echelles nodded approvingly. "An archbishop ought to make a good end." His mind pleased itself with the picture of so high a dignitary of the church in his full canonicals coming under his tender care and being exhorted by his pious counsels. The two hangmen climbed on the platform of the grisly erection, and, calmly indifferent to the nature of their bed, were in a few moments fast asleep and snoring as merrily as if every man in the world had been hung and there was nothing else for them to do but to take it easy for the rest of their days. The hard weariness of work and the easy weariness of wine had made them so heavy-headed that their slumbers were not disturbed by the sound of footfalls, though the footfalls echoed strangely loud in the lonely deserted place-the footfalls of a woman, swift and impatient, the footfalls of a man swiftly pursuing. In another moment the woman and the man came into the open space, now bright and shining with the risen sun. The woman was Katherine de Vaucelles; the man was Noel le Jolys. As Katherine entered the silent square, she paused for a moment a few paces from the church, and turning, looked at her silent follower. "Why do you follow me?" she asked, and Noel le Jolys, who had dogged her footsteps from the palace, answered her briskly: "You should not walk unguarded. Therefore I shadow you." Katherine scorned him. "You may well play the shadow, for you cast no shadow of your own. The streets are very idle--the streets are very quiet. I would sooner have my loneliness than your company. Let me pass to my prayers." For Noel had glided between her and the church, and stood barring her passage deferentially. "For your lover?" he asked, and Katherine flashed at him: "You have a small mind to ask, yet I have a great mind to answer. My prayers are for a brave gentleman whom I shall never see again."