From Marietta Gerald heard how, with that strange fatality of inconsistency which ever seemed to accompany the fortunes of the Stuarts, none proved faithful followers save those whose lives of excess or debauchery rendered them valueless; and thus the drunken Fra, whose wild snatches of song and ribaldry now broke in upon the colloquy, was no other than the Carmelite, Kelly, the once associate and corrupter of his father.

In a half-mad enthusiasm to engage men in the cause of his Prince he had begun a sort of recruitment of a legion who were to land in Scotland or Ireland. The means by which he at first operated were somewhat liberally contributed to him by a secret emissary of the family, whom Kelly at length discovered to be the private secretary of Miss Walsingham, the former mistress of Charles Edward. Later on, however, he found out that this lady herself was actually a pensioner of the English government, and in secret correspondence with Mr. Pitt, who, through her instrumentality, was in possession of every plan of the Pretender, and knew of his daily movements. This treacherous intercourse had begun several years before the death of Charles Edward, and lasted for some years after that event.

Stung by the consciousness of being duped, as well as maddened by having been rendered an enemy to the cause he sought to serve, Kelly disbanded his followers, and took to the mountains as a brigand. With years he had grown only more abandoned to excess of every kind. All his experiences of life had shown little beyond baseness and corruption, and he had grown to care for nothing beyond the enjoyment of the passing hour, except when the possibility of a vengeance on those who had betrayed him might momentarily awake his passion, and excite him to some effort of vindictive anger.

In his hours of mad debauchery he would rave about landing in England, and a plan he had conceived for assassinating the king; then it was his scheme to murder Mr. Pitt, and sometimes all these were abandoned for the desire to make Miss Walsingham herself pay the penalty of her base and unwomanly treachery.

‘He came to our convent gate in his garb of a friar to beg,’ said Marietta. ‘I saw him but for an instant, and I knew him at once. He was one of those who, in the “red days” of the Revolution, mocked the order he belonged to by wearing a rosary of playing-dice! and he recognised me as one who had even more shamelessly exposed herself.’ A deep crimson flush covered her face and neck as she spoke, and as quickly fled, to leave her as pale as a corpse. ‘Oh, mio caro,’ cried she, ‘there are intoxications more maddening to the senses than those of drinking; there are wild fevers of the mind, when degradation seems a sort of martyrdom; and in the very depth of our infamy and shame we appear to ourselves to have attained to something superhuman in self-denial. It was my fate to live with one who inspired these sentiments.’ She paused for a few seconds, and then, trembling on every accent, she said: ‘To win his love, to conquer the heart that would not yield to me, I dared more than ever woman, far more than ever man, dared.’

‘Here’s to the king’s buffoon, and a bumper toast it shall be,’ burst in the friar, with a drunken ribaldry; ‘and if there are any will not drink it, let him drink to the Minister’s mistress!’

To the sudden gesture which Gerald’s anger evoked, Marietta quickly interposed her hand, and, in a low, soft voice, besought him to remain quiet.

sang out Kelly lustily. ‘Who’ll deny it? Who’ll say there wasn’t sound reason and philosophy in that sentiment? None knew it better than Prince Charlie himself.’

‘And was this man the companion of a Prince?’ whispered Gerald in her ear.

‘Even so; fallen fortunes bring degraded followers,’ said Marietta. ‘I have heard it said that many of his father’s associates were of this stamp.’

‘And how could men hope to restore a cause thus contaminated and stained?’ cried he, somewhat louder.

‘That’s what Kinloch said,’ burst in Kelly; ‘you remember the song—

‘A black falsehood, as black as ever a traitor uttered!’ cried Gerald, whose passion burst all bounds.

‘Here’s to the traitors—hip, hip! To the traitors, for it was—

‘And so thought the Prince too, cried he out fiercely, and in a tone meant for an insolent taunt. ‘He liked the easy life and the soft couch of St. Germains far better than the long march and the heather-bed in the Highlands.’

‘How long must I endure this fellow’s insolence?’ whispered Gerald to Marietta, in a voice trembling with passion.

‘For my sake, Gherardi,’ she began; but the Fra overheard the words, and with a drunken laugh broke in—

‘If you have a drop of Stuart blood in you, you ‘ll yield to the woman, whatever it is she asks.’

Stung beyond control of reason, Gerald sprang to his feet; but before he could even approach Kelly, the stout friar had grasped his short blunderbuss and cocked it.

‘Another step—one step more, and if you were the anointed King himself, instead of his bastard, I ‘ll send you to your reckoning!’

With a spring like the bound of a tiger, Gerald dashed at him; but the Fra was prepared, and, raising the weapon to his side, he fired. A wild, mad cry, blended with the loud report echoed in many a mountain gorge, and the youth fell dead on the sward.

Marietta threw herself down upon the corpse, kissing the lifeless lips, and clasping her arms around the motionless body. With every endearing word she tried to call him back to life, even for a momentary consciousness of her devotion. The love she had so long denied him, she now offered; she would be his and his only. With the wild eloquence of a mind on fire, she pictured forth a future, now brightened with all that successful ambition could confer, now blessed with the tranquil joys of some secluded existence. Alas! he was beyond the reach of either fortune. The last of the Stuarts lay still and stark on the cold earth, his blue eyes staring without a blink at the strong sun.

When some peasants passed on the following day they found Marietta seated beside the dead body, the cold hand clasped within both her own, and her eyes riveted upon the features; her mind was gone, and, save a few broken, indistinct mutterings, she never spoke again.

As for Kelly, none ever could trace him. Some allege that he dashed over the precipice and was killed; others aver that he sailed that same night from St. Stephano for America, where he was afterwards seen and recognised by many.

The little cypress tree in the mountains which once marked the grave of the last of the Stuarts has long since withered.

THE END