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the street. The coast was clear; there was no meddlesome patrol in
sight. Still it was judged wiser to slip out severally; and as Villon
was himself in a hurry to escape from the neighbourhood of the dead
Thevenin, and the rest were in a still greater hurry to get rid of him
before he should discover the loss of his money, he was the first by
general consent to issue forth into the street.

The wind had triumphed and swept all the clouds from heaven. Only a few
vapours, as thin as moonlight, fleeted rapidly across the stars. It was
bitter cold; and by a common optical effect, things seemed almost more
definite than in the broadest daylight. The sleeping city was absolutely
still: a company of white hoods, a field full of little Alps, below the
twinkling stars. Villon cursed his fortune. Would it were still snowing!
Now, wherever he went, he left an indelible trail behind him on the
glittering streets; wherever he went he was still tethered to the house
by the cemetery of St. John; wherever he went he must weave, with his
own plodding feet, the rope that bound him to the crime and would bind
him to the gallows. The leer of the dead man came back to him with a new
significance. He snapped his fingers as if to pluck up his own spirits,
and choosing a street at random, stepped boldly forward in the snow.

Two things preoccupied him as he went: the aspect of the gallows at
Montfaucon in this bright windy phase of the night's existence, for one;
and for another, the look of the dead man with his bald head and garland
of red curls. Both struck cold upon his heart, and he kept quickening
his pace as if he could escape from unpleasant thoughts by mere
fleetness of foot. Sometimes he looked back over his shoulder with a
sudden nervous jerk; but he was the only moving thing in the white
streets, except when the wind swooped round a corner and threw up the
snow, which was beginning to freeze, in spouts of glittering dust.

Suddenly he saw, a long way before him, a black clump and a couple of
lanterns. The clump was in motion, and the lanterns swung as though
carried by men walking. It was a patrol. And though it was merely
crossing his line of march, he judged it wiser to get out of eyeshot as
speedily as he could. He was not in the humour to be challenged, and he
was conscious of making a very conspicuous mark upon the snow. Just on
his left hand there stood a great hotel, with some turrets and a large
porch before the door; i