The story is not one on which to dwell. It is less a story, indeed, than a string of unrelated incidents. Though spun out and protracted, it does not end but leaves off; and of the circumstances of its termination there is no record. Marianna's avarice may have had something to do with it. So may her habit, above referred to, of intriguing with all comers. But nothing is known; and the one thing certain is that, though Byron was attracted, sentiment played no part in the attraction. It would seem too that he was only relatively faithful. One gathers that from the account which he gives to Moore of a visit received from Marianna's sister-in-law, whom Marianna caught in his apartment, and seized by the hair, and slapped: "I need not describe the screaming which ensued. The luckless visitor took flight. I seized Marianna, who, after several vain attempts to get away in pursuit of the enemy, fairly went into fits in my arms; and, in spite of reasoning, eau de Cologne, vinegar, half a pint of water, and God knows what other waters beside, continued so till past midnight." Whereupon enter Signor Segati himself, "her lord and master, and finds me with his wife fainting upon the sofa, and all the apparatus of confusion, dishevelled hair, hats, handkerchiefs, salts, smelling-bottles--and the lady as pale as ashes, without sense or motion." And then, explanations more or less suitable having been offered and accepted, "The sister-in-law, very much discomposed at being treated in such wise, has (not having her own shame before her eyes) told the affair to half Venice, and the servants (who were summoned by the fight and the fainting) to the other half." And so forth, and so forth. It is all very vulgar, and none of it of the faintest importance except for the sake of the light which it throws on Byron's mind and disposition, though its importance is, from that point of view, considerable. It shows Byron sick of sentiment because sentiment has failed him and played him false, but grasping at the sensual pleasures of love as the solid realities about which no mistake is possible. It shows him, moreover, socially as well as sentimentally, on the down grade, consorting with inferiors, and in some danger of unfitting himself for the company of his equals. The reckless note of the man resolved to enjoy himself, or at any rate to keep up the pretence that he is doing so, although his heart is bankrupt, is struck in one of the letters to Augusta. It refers to a previous letter, not published, in which the tidings of the "new attachment" has already been communicated, and to a letter addressed, some time previously, to Lady Byron; and it continues: