"Even so, my sweet Lady Echo. Those far away lanterns warn me that I may die to-morrow. Some of us will be dreaming our last dreams by sunrise. I may be one of those heavy sleepers."
"Why, you may die if you ride on the king's business, but so may I who sit at home and eat my heart."
"For whom?"
"I will tell you that to-morrow."
Villon touched her lightly on the wrist and pointed to the grey tower on whose weather-beaten wall the quaint old dial showed plainly in the bright moonlight, with its wise Latin inscription: "Dum Spectas, Fugit Hora, Carpe Diem."
"There is no time like now time. That dial there is as wise as the wisest." And he rapidly rendered the antique maxim into a running rhyme:
Then use each hour while in your power;
For comes the sun but time flies on,
Proceeding ever, returning never."
Katherine tried to laugh.
"This was old wisdom when Noah sailed the seas," she said, and drew a little apart from him. Villon followed her.