'For the life of me I can't make out whether your disorder is a broken heart or ear-ache--or whether it is you that have been ill or the children--or what your melancholy and mysterious apprehensions tend to--or refer to--whether to Caroline Lamb's novels--Mrs. Clermont's evidence--Lady Byron's magnanimity, or any other piece of imposture.' It is really laughable to suppose that the writer of the above extract could have written to the same lady two years later in the following strain: 'My dearest love, I have never ceased, nor can cease, to feel for a moment that perfect and boundless attachment which bound and binds me to you--which renders me utterly incapable of _real_ love for any other human being--for what could they be to me after _you_? My own * * * * we may have been very wrong,' etc. But Lord Lovelace found no difficulty in believing that the letter in question sealed the fate of Augusta Leigh. In the face of such a document, Lord Lovelace thought that a direct confession in Augusta's handwriting would be superfluous, and Sir Leslie Stephen had warned him against superfluity! Colonel Doyle, an intimate friend of Lady Byron, seems to have been the only man on her side of the question--not even excepting Lushington--who showed anything approaching to common sense. He perceived that Lady Byron, by avowing the grounds of her suspicions to Mrs. Leigh, had placed herself in an awkward position. He foresaw that this avowal would turn Mrs. Leigh into an enemy, who must sooner or later avenge the insults heaped upon her. On July 9, 1816, Colonel Doyle wrote to Lady Byron: 'Your feelings I perfectly understand; I will even _whisper_ to you I approve. But you must remember that your position is very extraordinary, and though, when we have sufficiently deliberated and _decided_, we should pursue our course without embarrassing ourselves with the consequences; yet we should _not neglect the means of fully justifying ourselves_ if the necessity be ever imposed upon us.' We have quoted enough to show that, _five months after the separation was formally proposed to Lord Byron_, they had not sufficient evidence to bring into a court of law. Under those depressing circumstances Lady Byron was urged to induce Augusta to 'confess'; the conspirators would have been grateful even for an admission of guilt as _prior to Lord Byron's marriage_!