e
broke out. "It sticks in my throat like phlegm. What right has a man
to have red hair when he is dead?" And he fell all of a heap again
upon the stool, and fairly covered his face with his hands.

Montigny and Dom Nicolas laughed aloud, even Tabary feebly chiming in.

"Cry baby," said the monk.

"I always said he was a woman," added Montigny with a sneer. "Sit up,
can't you?" he went on, giving another shake to the murdered body.
"Tread out that fire, Nick." But Nick was better employed; he was
quietly taking Villon's purse, as the poet sat, limp and trembling, on
the stool where he had been making a ballade not three minutes before.
Montigny and Tabary dumbly demanded a share of the booty, which the
monk silently promised as he passed the little bag into the bosom of
his gown. In many ways an artistic nature unfits a man for practical
existence.

No sooner had the theft been accomplished than Villon shook himself,
jumped to his feet, and began helping to scatter and extinguish the
embers. Meanwhile Montigny opened the door and cautiously peered into
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 neighborhood 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 vapors, 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