Lady Jersey, as he told Medwin, did her best for him. He and Mrs. Leigh were both present at a reception specially given in his honour--a demonstration that one social leader at least attached no importance and gave no credence to the scandals which besmeared his name. Miss Mercer, afterwards Madame de Flahault and, in her own right, Lady Keith, made a point of greeting him with frank cordiality as if nothing had happened. Probably the specific scandal which Lady Byron had been compelled to disavow was never taken very seriously outside Lady Byron's immediate circle. Certainly it was not the scandal which aroused the indignation of the multitude. For them, the _causa teterrima belli_ was Mrs. Mardyn, the actress, whom Byron hardly knew by sight; and the gravamen of their charge against him was that he had treated a woman badly. That was enough for them; and their indignation was too much for him. Now that the deed of separation had been signed, it was too late for him to fight. The "grosser charges" against him were charges of which he could not prove publication--charges which had been withdrawn. Sneers and innuendoes did not, any more than hoots and hisses, furnish him with any definite allegation on which he could join issue. The whispered charge involving his sister was not one which he could formally contradict unless it were formally preferred. _Qui s'excuse s'accuse_ would have been quoted against him if he had done so; and Mrs. Leigh's good name as well as his own would have been at the mercy of the mud-slingers. All things considered, it seemed that the best course open to him was to travel, and let the hostile rumours die away, instead of keeping them alive by argument. He went, and they died away and were forgotten. We will follow him to the continent presently, and see how nearly persecution drove him to degradation, and how, under the influence of the blow which threatened to crush him, his genius took fresh flights, more hardy than of old, and more sublime. But first we must turn back, and face the scandal in the form in which Mrs. Beecher Stowe and Lord Lovelace have successively given it two fresh leases of life, and see whether it is not possible to blow it into the air so effectively that no admirer of Byron's genius need ever feel uneasy about it again. CHAPTER XX REVIVAL OF THE BYRON SCANDAL BY MRS. BEECHER STOWE AND THE LATE LORD LOVELACE The Byron scandal slowly fell asleep, and was allowed to slumber for about half a century. Even the publication of Moore's Life did not awaken it. People took sides, indeed, as they always do, some throwing the blame on the husband, and others on the wife; but the view that, whoever was to blame, the causes of the separation were "too simple to be easily found out" prevailed.