How far Byron was candid with his friends it is, of course, impossible to say. We know neither what he told them nor what he left untold. All that is on record is their opinion, reproduced by Hobhouse, that "the whole charge against him would amount merely to such offences as are more often committed than complained of, and, however they might be regretted as subversive of matrimonial felicity, would not render him amenable to the laws of any court, whether of justice or of equity." That was either at the end of February or the beginning of March. Early in the latter month Byron and his friends opened further negotiations. Byron once more asked his wife to see him, and she replied: "I regret the necessity of declining an interview under existing circumstances." Then Lady Melbourne urged her to return to her husband, but only elicited an expression of wonder "that Lord Byron had not more regard for his reputation than to think of coming before the public." Then Lord Holland, who had already offered his services as a negotiator, submitted to Byron the proposed terms of a deed of separation; but Byron rejected the terms, describing the proposal as "a kind of appeal to the supposed mercenary feelings of the person to whom it was made." There next followed interviews between Lady Byron and Mrs. Leigh, and between Lady Byron and Captain Byron. To these intermediaries Lady Byron represented that "something had passed which she had as yet told to no one, and which nothing but the absolute necessity of justifying herself in Court should wring from her." Whereto Byron replied that "it was absolutely false that he had been guilty of any enormity--that nothing could or would be proved by anybody against him, and that he was prepared for anything that could be said in any Court." He allowed Hobhouse to offer on his behalf "any guarantees short of separation"; but he made it quite clear that he was not frightened, and would not yield to threats. Upon that Lady Byron changed her tone. Her next letter did not so much claim a separation as beg for one. "After your repeated assertions," she wrote, "that, when convinced my conduct has not been influenced by others, you should not oppose my wishes, I am yet disposed to hope these assertions will be realised." There, at last, was an appeal to which it was possible for Byron to respond--on terms; not on Lady Byron's terms, of course--but on his own. He had begun the negotiations by declining to "implore as a suppliant the return of a reluctant wife." Nothing had happened in the course of the negotiations to persuade him that he would live more happily with Lady Byron than without her. Indeed, it was now more evident than ever that to separate was the only way of making the best of a bad job. [Illustration: _Lady Byron._]