Two letters follow, but not before June 26, 1813, and they are equally commonplace in tone and subject. After this he remained silent for so long that his sister thought she must have offended him, and he accordingly wrote to her on October 10, 1813 to assure her that she was mistaken, and that his silence was owing to circumstances which he could not then detail. On November 8, 1813, he writes again :

'I have only time to say that I shall write to-morrow, and that my present and long silence has been occasioned by a thousand things with which you are not concerned. It is not L., C., nor O.; but perhaps you may guess, and if you do, do

'You do not know what mischief your being with me might have prevented. You shall hear from me to-morrow; in the meantime don't be alarmed. I am in no immediate peril.'

The italics again are ours.

That he had been engaged upon the perpetration of some act during that year which even he deplored, the letter which we have just quoted plainly shows. But, whatever it was, it is clear that it was not the seduction of his sister. Mr Edgcumbe insists, and there is much to be said for his contention, which we will discuss presently, that the victim was his early love, Mary Chaworth. During the summer, autumn, and winter of 1813 he vibrated between London and Newstead, and his intermittent letters to his sister, bearing dates in the last four months of the year, show that he had seen little or nothing of her, and heard almost as little. He was at Newstead by the third week of January 1814. On the 12th he had again invited his sister to visit him, and the form of invitation, especially the words we have italicised, show that she had never been there before.

'On Sunday or Monday next, with the leave of your Lord and President, you will be well and ready to accompany me to Newstead, which you should see, and which I will endeavour to render as comfortable as I can for both our sakes.'

She came with her children, and stayed with him from about January 17, 1814, to the middle or end of the first week in February. On the 4th of February, he writes to John Murray: 'Mrs Leigh is with me-much pleased with Vol. 212.-No. 422.

the place,' another phrase which shows that it was her first visit. He returned to London on the 9th of February. There is no published letter from him to his sister, though others had probably passed, until one of May 9, 1814, which consists of four lines referring to a loan or gift from him to meet the difficulties of her extravagant husband. Another followed upon the same subject on the 24th of June. Mrs Leigh had had a child born on April 15, 1814, called Medora, after the heroine of 'The Corsair,' and whom a latter-day hallucination of Lady Byron, ignorant or reckless of all these dates and circumstances, prompted her to call, some five-and-twenty years afterwards, the daughter of Augusta and Lord Byron! Early in the autumn of 1814 Mrs Leigh and her children again spent some time at Newstead, and Byron paid a return visit to Six Mile Bottom. While there he made his second proposal of marriage to Miss Milbanke, and was accepted. Is it not obvious that Byron's action was taken, not only with the goodwill and good wishes, but also upon the urgent advice of his loving hostess?

We have given above a plain narrative of events, unforced, uncoloured, which leave absolutely no room for the infamous scandal which chronology, unassisted, would be enough to refute. But more remains.

The Byrons passed the period of their married life together partly at Seaham, partly at Halnaby, and partly at No. 13 Piccadilly Terrace. In March they paid a visit of a fortnight to Mrs Leigh at Six Mile Bottom, and at the beginning of April Mrs Leigh came and stayed no less than ten weeks with them in Piccadilly. A letter is extant written after the conclusion of this visit, expressing Lady Byron's sorrow at losing her sisterin-law-whose return to her home duties she admits was inevitable-and her comfort in looking forward to having her back later on. On November 15 Mrs Leigh did return to Piccadilly at Lady Byron's request, and remained to give companionship and comfort to her sister-in-law during her confinement.

There can be little doubt that towards the end of 1815 Byron's conduct became deplorable. What with his obvious discontent with the restraints of marriage, and the state of irritation reaching almost to madness into which his financial difficulties threw him, he was

no fit companion for anybody. His wife and his sister were afraid of his outbreaks of violence and rage; and Lady Byron admitted gratefully that she looked upon Augusta's presence as her one consolation and safeguard. We only dwell upon all this, and upon Mrs Leigh's two long visits, in order to point the question, How could it be true that during the year she had passed under the same roof with Lord Byron'—to quote again the words of the statement of March 14, 1816-Lady Byron had suspected Mrs Leigh? Can anybody conceive that in such a case she would have hailed her back to her bedside? Is there any means of avoiding the conclusion that the charge was, as we insist, a dishonest afterthought?

As a fabrication it was not hardier than the deception which she played upon her husband on leaving him. She left Piccadilly more than five weeks after the birth of her child. There was every reason why she should go; the house, disturbed by execution after execution, was no place for a young mother. But there was no pretence for saying that she and her husband had parted on bad terms. Byron insisted, and Hobhouse believed him, that they had lived in the closest possible conjugal relations up to the very day of her departure. On her way she rested at Woburn, whence she sent back a letter which began thus:

'DEAREST B.,-We arrived here safely-the child is the best of travellers. Now do leave off the abominable trade of versifying, and brandy, everything which is nau—'

The rest of the letter is lost, but it is hardly presumptuous to fill in the rest of that imperfect last word. It is known to have reference to a late infidelity, which he had confessed, and she had pardoned. The very next day she sent a far more loving and playful letter upon her arrival at Kirkby.

'DEAREST DUCK,--We got here quite well last night, and were ushered into the kitchen instead of the drawing-room by a mistake that might have been agreeable enough to hungry people. . . . Of this and other incidents Dad wants to write you a jocose account, and both he and Mam long to have the family party completed. Such .! and such a sitting-room or sulking-room, all to yourself. If I were not always looking for B I should be a great deal better

already for country air. Miss finds her provisions increased, and fattens thereon. It is a good thing she cannot understand all the flattery bestowed upon her. "Little Angel" ... and I know not what. . . . Love to the good goose, and everybody's love to you both from hence.

For 'goose' read Augusta. What! Love to the woman whom for a year past she had been suspecting of incest, and that with the man to whom she was writing! Incredible.

It is hard to believe that during the very week which followed the date of this epistle Lady Noel and her âme damnée Mrs Clermont had been in London seeing lawyers, and taking other steps to provide means,' as Hobhouse puts it, to procure a separation between Lord Byron and his wife. What had happened at Kirkby we shall never know. It is possible that Lady Byron was nettled at her husband's silence for he never answered the 'Dearest Duck' letter-and that she went off in a pet to her mother with a string of tales about Byron's sulkings, violence, opinions, and general irregularities at Drury Lane and elsewhere. It is even possible that such a revelation synchronised with a conviction of Lady Noel's that it would be convenient to get rid of Lord Byron, the burden of settlements on the Wentworth estate, and the financial difficulties arising from the non-sale of Newstead and Rochdale, at one swoop. Sir James Bland Burges, one of Lady Noel's nearest relatives, and a trustee of her estate, confided and confirmed this suspicion [to Hobhouse] by the communication of many particulars, and his general impression as to the [then] present owner of the Noel property.' On the 3rd of February, little more than a fortnight after he had received the 'Dearest Duck' epistle, with its fun, its loving intimacy, its invitation to Kirkby from everybody there, the promise of a 'jocose letter from Dad,' and all the rest of it, came a formal missive from Sir Ralph, of which it is only necessary to quote the first paragraph; the italics are ours.

'MY LORD, However painful it may be to me, I find myself compelled by every feeling as a parent, and principle as a

man, to address your Lordship on a subject which I hardly suppose will be any surprise to you. Very recently, circumstances have come to my knowledge which convince me that with your opinions it cannot tend to your happiness to continue to live with Lady Byron, and I am yet more forcibly convinced that after her dismissal from your house and the treatment she experienced whilst in it, those, on whose protection she has the strongest natural claims, could not feel justified in permitting her return thither.'

Byron answered this startling letter by return of post. His reply was temperate and dignified. He repudiated his wife's dismissal, and declared that they had parted in perfect amity; though he admitted that he had been gloomy, and at times violent, he urged that of these moods his wife knew the causes too well to attribute them either to himself or to his feelings towards her. He finally appeals from her parents to herself, and declares that his determination shall depend on hers. On the same day he wrote to Lady Byron herself, 'asking,' says Hobhouse, 'in affectionate terms for an explanation of Sir Ralph's letter.' As she did not answer, he wrote again on the 5th of February as follows:

'DEAREST BELL,-No answer from you yet; but perhaps it is as well; only do recollect that all is at stake, the present, the future, even the colouring of the past. My errors, or by whatever name you choose to call them, you know; but I loved you, and will not part from you without your express and expressed refusal to return to or to receive me.

'Ever, dearest, yours most, etc., B.'

He followed up this on the 7th of February with another appeal to Sir Ralph, explicit, dignified, full, earnest, and genuine. And on the 8th he made another effort with his wife. We give from this letter a few scattered phrases, selected to illustrate its tone:

'All I can say seems useless, and all I could say might be no less unavailing, yet I cling to the wreck of my hopes. . . Were you then never happy with me? . . . Have no marks of affection passed between us? Or did in fact hardly a day go down without some such on one side, generally on both?

'Had I not acknowledged to you all my faults and follies?...