'You have fever. Why did you not tell me?'
Giovanni would have turned away, but looking afresh at Leonardo, and joining his hands supplicatingly, he said:—
'Drive me out! Drive me from you, Master! I shall never myself have the courage to go. I am guilty towards you—a vile traitor.'
For answer Leonardo embraced him, drawing him to his breast.
'What say you, my son? Do you think I have not seen your distress? If there is anything in which you think you have wronged me, I pardon it. Perhaps some day you will be asked to pardon me!'
Astonished, Giovanni gazed at him with dreaming eyes, then suddenly hid his face in his breast, sobs shaking his frame as he murmured:—
'If ever again I am obliged to leave you, oh, Master, do not think it is for lack of love! I myself know not what has happened to me. Sometimes I fear I am losing my reason. God has forsaken me! Oh, never, never suppose—for truly I love you more than all else in the world! I love you more than Fra Benedetto, who is as my father. Never will any one love you as do I!'
Leonardo soothed him like a child. 'Enough! Enough! Think you I credit not your love, my poor lad? Has Cesare suggested—but why do you heed Cesare? He is clever, and he, too, loves me well, for all he thinks to hate me; but there are matters beyond him.'
The disciple had become calm, and his tears were dry. Raising himself, and fixing scrutinising eyes on the Master, he shook his head.
'No; it was not Cesare. 'Twas I myself. And yet no; it was not I, but he.'