This is perfectly true. Byron proposed to Miss Milbanke in 1812. If she had married him then, he would not have renewed his intimacy with Mary Chaworth in June, 1813. There would have been no heart-hunger, no misery, no remorse, and, in short, no inspiration for 'The Giaour,' 'The Bride,' 'The Corsair,' and 'Lara.' Miss Milbanke's refusal of his offer of marriage in 1812 rankled long in Byron's mind, and provoked those ungenerous reproaches which have been, with more or less exaggeration, reported by persons in Lady Byron's confidence. The mischief was done between the date of Miss Milbanke's refusal and her acceptance of his offer, which occurred after the fury of his passion for Mary Chaworth had burnt itself out. No blame attaches to Lady Byron for this misfortune. When Byron first proposed, her affections were elsewhere engaged; she could not, therefore, dispose of her heart to him. When she at last accepted him, it was too late for happiness. In a letter which Byron wrote to Miss Milbanke previous to his marriage,[51] he unconsciously prophesied the worst: 'The truth is that could I have foreseen that your life was to be linked to mine--had I even possessed a distinct hope, however distant--I would have been a different and better being. As it is, I have sometimes doubts, even if I should not disappoint the future, nor act hereafter unworthily of you, whether the past ought not to make you still regret me--even that portion of it with which you are not unacquainted. I did not believe such a woman existed--at least for me--_and I sometimes fear I ought to wish that she had not_.' When Byron said that he had doubts whether the past would not eventually reflect injuriously upon his future wife, he referred, not to Augusta Leigh, but to his fatal intercourse with Mary Chaworth. The following sentences taken from Mrs. Leigh's letters to Francis Hodgson, who knew the truth, prove that the mystery only incidentally affected Augusta. The letters were written February, 1816. 'From what passed [between Captain Byron and Mrs. Clermont] _now_, if _they_ choose it, it must come into court! God alone knows the consequences.' 'It strikes me that, if their pecuniary proposals are favourable, Byron will be too happy to escape the exposure. _He must_ be anxious. It is impossible he should not in some degree.'