gave you
life when justice would have hung you as a rogue and a thief. Of all
men you are the last who should sneer at the King's mercy. And now
will you call Jean Saxe, or must I go myself?"

"As my friend La Mothe decides," answered Villon. "I advise it myself.
Give a lie a night's start and you will never catch it up."

"Stephen, son, be wise."

With a gesture of despair La Mothe would have turned away, but Commines
held him fast. His faith was unshaken, but the natural reaction from
the day's tense emotion had sapped its buoyancy, leaving it negative
and inert rather than positive and aggressive. The half-hour's
slackless concentration of nerve and muscle in the defence of the
stairway had drained him of strength and energy like the crisis of a
fever. For him Ursula de Vesc's curt No! stood against the world; but
Philip de Commines was the King's justice in Amboise, and against Jean
Saxe's accusation her denial would carry no weight--no weight at all.
But, though the gesture was one of helplessness, Villon chose to
construe it into consent.

"Good!" he said cordially, "it is best, much the best. In half an hour
I will bring Saxe to--let me see, the Hercules room, I think, Monsieur
d'Argenton? It is small, but large enough for the purpose, and as it
has only one door it can be easily guarded."

"No guards," said Commines harshly. "There must be no publicity."

Villon laughed unpleasantly. His shifting mood had, almost for the
first time in his life, felt kindly disposed towards Commines as he saw
his evident solicitude for La Mothe, but that was forgotten in the
contemptuous recall of a past he held should no longer rise against
him. What the King forgave the King's minister should forget. The
thrust had wounded his vanity, and now, as he saw his opening, he
promptly thrust back in return.

"You are the King's justice in Amboise and would have no man know it!
That is true modesty, Monsieur d'Argenton! No, don't fear, there will
be no publicity. Monsieur La Mothe, he calls you son; but friend is
more than kin, more than family, remember that Francois Villon says so."

Commines' answer was an upward shake of the head, a lifting of the
shoulders hardly perceptible in the darkness.

"It is the nature of curs to snarl," he said. "But his impertinence
grows insufferable and must be muzzled." Linking his arm into La
Mothe's he drew him slowly along the garden path. Both were
preoccupied by the s