"I leave this dead woman in your hands," he said, "for I think you had a kindness for her. See that she has Christian burial."
Noel bowed his head and followed in silence the girl's body. The garden was left to Louis and Villon, Tristan and Olivier, and the handful of captured rogues who stood apart, strongly guarded and stripped of their pilgrims' garb, gazing amazed at Louis and his double. Villon, silent too, looked after the little group that bore away the dead girl's body. His mind was a warfare of wild memories. Strange recollections of times and places with Huguette came crowding up and beating piteously upon his brain. He thought of what he had been, and groaned; of what he was now, and his soul cried out as in prayer in the name of Katherine.
CHAPTER XII
A VIRGIN'S TEARS
The king's hand fell upon his shoulder and shattered his meditations.
"Are you so dashed by the death of a wanton?" the king asked mockingly.
Villon turned upon him in a noble rage.
"She had God's breath in her body, sire," he said. Then drawing his hand across his forehead as if to dissipate the sad fancies that oppressed him, he went on:
"I have been John-a-Nods for the moment, sire; now I am Jack-a-Deeds again. The hour for battle is at hand."
Louis shrugged his shoulders.