and Mrs. James, and booked a double
room." Mrs. Walters had not, she admitted, "actually discovered them
undressed, or sharing the bed," but "she would not have been surprised
to have done so." Accordingly, when her travelling companion left the
next morning, she taxed Mrs. James with misconduct. After telling her
to "mind her own business," Mrs. James had declared that she and
Captain Lennox were on the point of being married, and had then packed
up and left the establishment.

"What exactly did she say?" enquired the judge.

"She said, 'what I choose to do is my own affair and nobody else's.'"

On leaving the somewhat arid hospitality of the Covent Garden Hotel,
Mrs. James had removed to a lodging-house just off Pall Mall, where
she stopped for a month. Mrs. Martin, the proprietress, told the court
that, during this period, Captain Lennox settled the bill, and "called
there every day, often stopping till all hours of the night."

The testimony of Mrs. Sarah Watson, the sister of Captain James, was
that her brother had written to her in the autumn of 1840, saying that
his wife had been thrown from her horse and was coming to England for
medical treatment; and that he had written to his aunt, Mrs. Rae, of
Edinburgh, suggesting that his wife should stop with her. Mrs. Watson,
having "been told things," then called on Mrs. James in Covent Garden.
"I spoke to her," she said, "of the shocking rumour that Captain
Lennox had passed a night with her there, and pointed out the
unutterable ruin that would result from a continuance of such
deplorable conduct. I begged her to entrust herself to the care of
Mrs. Rae. My entreaties were ineffectual. She positively declared,
affirming with an oath, that she would do nothing of the kind."

Among the passengers on board the East Indiaman by which Mrs. James
had voyaged to England was Mrs. Ingram, the captain's wife. "The
conduct of Mrs. James," she said, "was unguarded in the extreme, and
her general behaviour was what is sometimes called flirting." Captain
Ingram, who followed, had a still more disturbing story to recount.
"On several occasions," he said, "I heard Mrs. James address the
gentleman who joined us at Madras as 'Dear Lennox,' and she would even
admit him to the privacy of her cabin while the other passengers were
attending divine service on deck. When I spoke to her about it, she
answered me in a very cool fashion."

All this was distinctly damaging. The real sensati