'Friend,' began the duke, 'you have heard the slander?'

'Which slander, my lord?' asked the painter.

'If you know not which, 'tis that you have heard nothing, and it is not worth the trouble of telling you. Yet no, I will tell you, that we may have our mock at it together. They say——' He paused, looked the artist full in the eyes, and, smiling calmly, completed the phrase; 'they say 'tis you have murdered me.'

Leonardo thought him delirious, but he repeated:—

'Just that. They say 'tis you have murdered me. Three weeks ago Il Moro and his Beatrice sent me a basket of delectable peaches. But Madonna Isabella says that from the moment I tasted them I have pined away; that in your garden you have a peach-tree which bears poison.'

'In very truth,' assented Leonardo, 'I have such a tree.'

'Amico mio! can it be possible——'

'Nay; not if the fruit be really that from my garden. I can explain the reason of these rumours. To study the effect of poison upon trees, I inoculated my peach-tree with arsenic, and warned Zoroastro, my disciple, to beware of the fruit. Probably he was over hasty in relating the fact, for as matter of truth the experiment failed and the peaches have proved innocuous.'

'I knew it! I knew it!' cried the duke with relief. 'No one is guilty of my death. Yet here each one is suspecting the other, and hating and fearing him! If it were but possible to speak openly, as you and I speak to each other at this instant! My uncle is suspected of the deed; but I know him to be a kindly man, though timorous and weak. What interest could he have in my death when I myself am willing to give him my throne? I want nothing; I would gladly have left all these people and lived in retirement and liberty with a few chosen friends. I would have been a monk, or thy pupil, Leonardo. But no one will believe that I do not desire power. Why have they done this evil? Dio mio! they have not poisoned me, but they have poisoned themselves, poor blind ones! with the harmless fruit of thy harmless tree. I have grieved over perverse fate which makes me to die young, but now I am calm, I am at ease, Master, as though on a scorching day I had thrown off dusty clothes and cast myself into pure water. I know not how to tell thee, dear friend, but of a surety thou dost comprehend, thou who art thyself——'

Leonardo smiled serenely, and pressed the poor wasted hand, but did not answer.