"Look into my face," he said. "Look well. Do you see nothing there that reminds you of other hours?"
Katherine smiled divinely.
"Of happy hours in this rose garden."
Villon insisted fiercely:
"No, no! Of a dark night, a tavern, a cloaked woman, a sordid fellow dreaming sottishly by the fire, a prayer, a love-tale and a promise, a crowd of bullies and wantons, a quarrel, a fight with sword and lantern in the dark, a breast knot of ribbon flung from a gallery—"
Katherine recoiled a little, with a horror in her eyes.
"What are you trying to tell me?" she asked.
Villon dropped on his knees with a groan.
"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.