Camillo comes in.
Thrusting herself before him, Michiella points to the stricken couple 'See! it is to show you this that I am here.' Behold occasion for a grand quatuor! While confessing his guilt to Camilla, Leonardo has excused it by an emphatic delineation of Michiella's magic sway over him.

(Leonardo, in fact, is your small modern Italian Machiavelli, overmatched in cunning, for the reason that he is always at a last moment the victim of his poor bit of heart or honesty: he is devoid of the inspiration of great patriotic aims.) If Michiella (Austrian intrigue) has any love, it is for such a tool.

She cannot afford to lose him.

She pleads for him; and, as Camilla is silent on his account, the cynical magnanimity of Camillo is predisposed to spare a fangless snake.

Michiella withdraws him from the naked sword to the back of the stage.