Lifting a lute he touched the strings lightly. He was in one of the smaller rooms of the Château, one the girl used more, almost, than any other, and little suggestions of her were scattered about it. On a bench was a piece of woman's work with the threaded needle pushed through the stuff as when she laid it aside, flowers she had gathered were on the table, the portière masking the door was her embroidery. Perhaps all these forced an association of ideas. Picking the strings out one by one half unconsciously, the air of the love song followed the shift of the hand, and equally unconsciously his voice took up the rhythm, first in an undertone, then louder and louder:
"Heigh-ho! Love is my sun,
Love is my moon and the stars by night.
Heigh-ho! hour there is none,
Love of my heart, but thou art my light;
Never forsaking,
Noon or day-breaking,
Midnights of sorrow thy comforts make bright.
Heigh-ho! Love is my life,
Live I in loving and love I to live:
Heigh-ho!——"
"Monsieur La Mothe, Monsieur La Mothe, have you deceived us all these days?"
Down went the lute with a clang which jarred its every string into discord, and La Mothe sprang to his feet.
"Deceived you, mademoiselle! How?"
"That first night—I do not like to remember it even now, but Monsieur Villon told us you were both poet and singer, but you denied it. And now I hear you singing——"
"Not singing, mademoiselle."
"Singing," she persisted, with a pretty emphasis which La Mothe found very pleasant. "We shall have a new play to-night. A Court of High Justice, and Monsieur La Mothe arraigned for defrauding Amboise of a pleasure these ten days. I shall prosecute, Charles must be judge, and your sentence will be to sing every song you know."
"Then I shall escape lightly; I know so few."
"There! You have confessed, and your punishment must begin at once.
Villon was right: Amboise is dull; sing for me, Monsieur La Mothe."