"You come with clean hands?" he asked, and Guy, answered, babbling, his words tumbling from him, incoherent and confused, holding out his huge paws like a schoolboy reproved for want of soap and water:
"As decent a lad, my lord, as ever kept body and soul together by walking on the straight and narrow path that leads to—"
He had stuttered thus far when Villon interrupted him.
"The gallows, Master Tabarie."
Guy's bulk quivered in piteous negation.
"No, no; I have the fear of God in me as strong as any man in
Paris."
Villon leaned over a little nearer to his victim and breathed a question into his ear:
"Do you know the Church of St. Maturin, Master Tabarie?"
The little pig-like eyes of Tabarie widened in surprise and he stammered a "No, my lord," that was in itself a flagrant confession of shameful knowledge. Villon wagged his head wisely.
"Master Tabarie, Master Tabarie, your memory is failing you. Why, no later than the middle of March last you broke into the church at dead of night and pilfered the gold plate from the altar. The fear of God is not very strong in you."