He pressed close to his father, and hid his face upon his father’s bosom.
“Speak, it will ease you. Speak out and clear yourself, as in a confession.”
“When you were ill,” Alexis whispered into his ear, “I thought you would not live, and I rejoiced! I wished you dead.”
Peter slowly, gently pushed him back and looked straight into his eyes. He saw there what he had never seen before in human eyes.
“Did you contemplate my death with any one?”
“No, no, no!” exclaimed Alexis, with such terror on his face and in his voice that his father believed him.
In silence they gazed at one another, their look had the same expression, and these two faces, so different, were suddenly alike. They reflected and fathomed one another like two mirrors.
Suddenly the Tsarevitch smiled feebly and said simply, but with a voice so strange, so altered that it seemed that, not he, but some one else was speaking through him:—
“I know father, it is perhaps impossible for you to forgive me. So be it, have me beaten, killed. I would die for you, only love me! love me always. Let no one know about this—you and I alone will know, you and I——”
His father did not answer, but covered his face with his hands.