re she speedily became bored; and boredom is the death of
love.

Later she went with Captain James to India. She endured a campaign in
Afghanistan, in which she thoroughly enjoyed herself because of the
attentions of the officers. On her return to London in 1842, one
Captain Lennox was a fellow passenger; and their association resulted
in an action for divorce, by which she was freed from her husband, and
yet by a technicality was not able to marry Lennox, whose family in any
case would probably have prevented the wedding.

Mrs. Mayne says, in writing on this point:

Even Lola never quite succeeded in being allowed to commit bigamy
unmolested, though in later years she did commit it and took refuge in
Spain to escape punishment.

The same writer has given a vivid picture of what happened soon after
the divorce. Lola tried to forget her past and to create a new and
brighter future. Here is the narrative:

Her Majesty's Theater was crowded on the night of June 10,1843. A new
Spanish dancer was announced--"Dona Lola Montez." It was her debut, and
Lumley, the manager, had been puffing her beforehand, as he alone knew
how. To Lord Ranelagh, the leader of the dilettante group of
fashionable young men, he had whispered, mysteriously:

"I have a surprise in store. You shall see."

So Ranelagh and a party of his friends filled the omnibus boxes, those
tribunes at the side of the stage whence success or failure was
pronounced. Things had been done with Lumley's consummate art; the
packed house was murmurous with excitement. She was a raving beauty,
said report--and then, those intoxicating Spanish dances! Taglioni,
Cerito, Fanny Elssler, all were to be eclipsed.

Ranelagh's glasses were steadily leveled on the stage from the moment
her entrance was imminent. She came on. There was a murmur of
admiration--but Ranelagh made no sign. And then she began to dance. A
sense of disappointment, perhaps? But she was very lovely, very
graceful, "like a flower swept by the wind, she floated round the
stage"--not a dancer, but, by George, a beauty! And still Ranelagh made
no sign.

Yet, no. What low, sibilant sound is that? And then what confused,
angry words from the tribunal? He turns to his friends, his eyes ablaze
with anger, opera-glass in hand. And now again the terrible "Hiss-s-s!"
taken up by the other box, and the words repeated loudly and more
angrily even than before--the historic words which sealed Lola's doom
at Her M