This trouble, however, was not immediate. Lady Byron did not begin to talk till some time afterwards: and at first she only talked to people who had sense enough to keep her secret, if not to rate it at its true value. Not until some years after her death did a foolish woman in whom she had confided publish her story to the world in a book filled from cover to cover with gross and even ludicrous inaccuracies. When that happened, the old scandal which the book revived was mistaken for a new scandal freshly brought to light; and there was a great outcry about "shocking revelations" and much angry beating of the air by violent controversialists on both sides. All that it is necessary to say on that branch of the subject shall be said in a moment. What we have to note now is that Byron did not, and could not, foresee that that particular battle would rage over his reputation. He admitted to his friends, and he had previously admitted to Lady Byron, that "he had been guilty of infidelity with one female." He was under the impression that she had given him "a plenary pardon"; but the offence nevertheless gave her a moral--if not also a legal--right to her separation, if she insisted on it. Of the "gross" charges he only knew that they had never been formally pressed, and that they had been formally repudiated. So far as they were concerned, therefore, his honour was perfectly clear; and there remained no reason why he should not append his signature to the proposed deed of separation, as soon as its exact terms were agreed upon. The details still awaiting adjustment were mainly of the financial order. They were adjusted, and then Byron signed. It may be that he signed the more readily because the rumours had been tracked to another source, and disavowed there also. Lady Caroline Lamb has often been accused of putting them in circulation. She heard, at the time, that she had been so accused, and wrote to Byron to repudiate the charge. "They tell me," she wrote, "that you have accused me of having spread injurious reports against you. Had you the heart to say this? I do not greatly believe it." Very possibly the receipt of that letter strengthened Byron's resolution to sign. At all events he did sign, and then a storm burst about his head: