ny of a lady friend--and also of her husband, now
scared and penitent, but fearing to let her out of his sight--she drove
to a neighbouring convent, ostensibly to inspect the nuns' needlework.
On reaching her destination she ran up the convent steps, entered the
building, and the door was slammed and bolted behind her in the very
face of Charles Edward, who had followed as fast as his dropsical legs
would carry him up the steps. The Prince, blazing at such an outrage,
hammered fiercely at the door until at last the Lady Abbess herself
showed her face at the grating, and told him in no ambiguous words that
he would not be allowed to enter! His wife had come to her for
protection; and if he had any grievance he had better appeal to the Duke
of Tuscany.

Thus ended the tragic union of the "Bonnie Prince" and his Countess.
Emancipation had come at last; and, while Louise was now free to devote
her life to her beloved Alfieri, her brutal husband was left for eight
years to the company of his bottle and the ministrations of his natural
daughter, until a drunkard's grave at Frascati closed over his mis-spent
life. The pity and the tragedy of it!

Louise of Albany and her poet-lover were now free to link their lives at
the altar--but no such thought seems to have entered the head of either.
They were perfectly happy without the bond of the wedding-ring, of which
the Countess had such terrible memories; and together they walked
through life, happy in each other and indifferent to the world's
opinion.

Now in Florence, now in Rome; living together in Alsace, drifting to
Paris; and, when the Revolution drove them from the French capital,
seeking refuge in London, where we find the uncrowned Queen of England
chatting amicably with the "usurper" George in the Royal box at the
opera--always inseparable, and Louise always clinging to the shreds of
her Royal dignity, with a throne in her ante-room, and "Your Majesty"
on her servants' lips. Thus passed the careless, happy years for
Countess and poet until, in 1803, Alfieri followed the "Bonnie Prince"
behind the veil, and left a desolate Louise to moan amid her tears,
"There is no more happiness for me."

But Louise was not left even now without the solace of a man's love,
which seemed as indispensable to her nature as the air she breathed.
Before Alfieri had been many months in his Florence tomb his place by
the Countess's side had been taken by Francois Xavier Fabre, a
good-looki