"Lady Caroline," she says, "with impertinent disregard of Byron's infirmity, asked him to waltz. He contemptuously replied, 'I cannot, and you nor any other woman ought not.'" Whereupon, the narrator continues, Lady Caroline rushed into the dressing-room, threw up the window, and tried to throw herself out of it, exclaiming with Saint-Preux: "_La roche est escarpée; l'eau est profonde!_" Then, saved by someone who saw her intention and caught hold of her skirts, she asked for water, bit a piece out of the glass which was handed to her, and tried to stab herself with it, but was ultimately persuaded to return home and go to bed. Fact and fancy, no doubt, are inextricably woven together in that narrative. All that is quite certain is that Lady Caroline did go home, and that her temper became so ungovernable that William Lamb, who also, in spite of his easy-going ways, had a temper, proposed a separation. The proposal was agreed to, and the family lawyer was instructed to draw up the deed. He drew it up; but when he brought it to the house to be signed, sealed, and delivered, he found Lady Caroline sitting on her husband's knee, "feeding him," says his biographer, "with tiny scraps of transparent bread and butter." His professional tact bade him retire before this unexpected tableau; and the separation was postponed for twelve years. That is practically the whole of the story, so far as Byron is concerned with it. Lady Caroline was to write him other letters to which it will be necessary to refer as we proceed; but she had now passed out of his life, even if he had not passed out of hers. Other urgent interests were springing up to occupy him; and he had once more heard the _leit motif_ for which we always have to listen when we find his actions, his letters, and his poems perplexing us. Society--that is to say, the women of society--blamed him for his conduct; but the blame, if it is to have any sting in it, seems to require the assumption that every woman has a right to every man's heart if she demands it with sufficient emphasis, and that any man who refuses to honour the demand is, _ipso facto_, "behaving badly." Women, perhaps, are a little more ready to make that assumption than are philosophers to allow its validity. Granting the assumption, we shall be bound to admit that Byron did treat Lady Caroline shamefully; but suppose we do not grant it--then, perhaps, our chief task will be to search for excuses for Lady Caroline herself.