The late Earl of Lovelace, as is well-known, attempted to acquit his grandmother of a charge of evil-speaking by convicting his grandfather of a charge of unnatural vice. It will be necessary to consider whether he has succeeded or failed in the attempt. The latter charge, but for his revival of it, might have been waived aside as equally calumnious and incredible. As it is, a biographer cannot discharge his task without taking up the challenge. It shall be taken up with every possible avoidance of unpleasant detail, but taken up it must be; and the most convenient way to approach the subject will be first to tell the story as it is presented by Hobhouse who represented Byron throughout the negotiations. CHAPTER XVIII LADY BYRON'S DEMAND FOR A SEPARATION--RUMOURS THAT "GROSS CHARGES" MIGHT BE BROUGHT, INVOLVING MRS. LEIGH Hobhouse, as we have seen, had an early inkling of the trouble which was to come; and it is not to be supposed that the brief entries in his Diary chronicle the whole of his knowledge. He had observed, indeed--or so he says--that it was "impossible for any couple to live in more apparent harmony"; but he also had reason to believe that the appearances did not reflect the realities with complete exactitude. He had heard Byron talk, though "vaguely," of breaking up his establishment, of going abroad without Lady Byron, of living alone in rooms; and he had noticed that Byron's complaints of his poverty led up to disparaging generalisations about marriage. Speaking of his embarrassments, Byron had said that "no one could know what he had gone through," but that he "should think lightly of them were he not married." Marriage, he had added, "doubled all his misfortunes and diminished all his comforts." He summed the matter up, with apparent anxiety to do equal justice to Lady Byron's feelings and his own by saying: "My wife is perfection itself--the best creature breathing; but mind what I say--_don't marry_." Having received these confidences, and knowing Byron well, Hobhouse must have been at least partially prepared for the subsequent developments; but their suddenness nevertheless surprised him, as they surprised everyone.