entirely changed. I considered a reconciliation impossible. I
declared my opinion, and added, that, if such an idea should be
entertained, I could not, either professionally or otherwise, take any
part towards effecting it.'

It does not appear in this note what effect the lawyer's examination of
the case had on Lady Byron's mind. By the expressions he uses, we should
infer that she may still have been hesitating as to whether a
reconciliation might not be her duty.

This hesitancy he does away with most decisively, saying, 'A
reconciliation is impossible;' and, supposing Lady Byron or her friends
desirous of one, he declares positively that he cannot, either
professionally as a lawyer or privately as a friend, have anything to do
with effecting it.

The lawyer, it appears, has drawn, from the facts of the case, inferences
deeper and stronger than those which presented themselves to the mind of
the young woman; and he instructs her in the most absolute terms.

Fourteen years after, in 1830, for the first time the world was
astonished by this declaration from Dr. Lushington, in language so
pronounced and positive that there could be no mistake.

Lady Byron had stood all these fourteen years slandered by her husband,
and misunderstood by his friends, when, had she so chosen, this opinion
of Dr. Lushington's could have been at once made public, which fully
justified her conduct.

If, as the 'Blackwood' of July insinuates, the story told to Lushington
was a malignant slander, meant to injure Lord Byron, why did she suppress
the judgment of her counsel at a time when all the world was on her side,
and this decision would have been the decisive blow against her husband?
Why, by sealing the lips of counsel, and of all whom she could influence,
did she deprive herself finally of the very advantage for which it has
been assumed she fabricated the story?

CHAPTER IV. THE CHARACTER OF THE TWO WITNESSES COMPARED.

It will be observed, that, in this controversy, we are confronting two
opposing stories,--one of Lord and the other of Lady Byron; and the
statements from each are in point-blank contradiction.

Lord Byron states that his wife deserted him. Lady Byron states that he
expelled her, and reminds him, in her letter to Augusta Leigh, that the
expulsion was a deliberate one, and that he had purposed it from the
beginning of their marriage.

Lord Byron always stated that he was ignorant why his wif