the
"funeral trappings of the monarchy" and the wail of the people.

'Of whom did she speak?' asked the friar.

'Of Gabriel Riquetti, whom she loved,' and the last words were whispered
by Gerald in her ear.

Marietta held down her head, and as she covered her face with her hands
muttered--'But who loved not her!'

'Gabriel Riquetti,' broke in the friar, 'had more of good and bad in him
than all the saints and all the devils that ever warred. He had the best
of principles and the worst of practices, and never did a wicked thing
but he could show you a virtuous reason for it.'

Struck by the contemptuous glance of Marietta, Gerald followed the look
she gave, and saw that the friar's eyes were bloodshot, and his face
purple with excess.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE END

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 o