From the correspondence and other documents one could not possibly gather whether she preferred her husband to her lover or her lover to her husband; whether she "worshipped" Byron for three years only or throughout her life; whether her attachment to him ceased, or did not cease, after her visit, in men's clothes, to his chambers; whether she did or did not rejoice in the unhappiness of his married life. On all these points she repeatedly contradicted herself with the excessive emphasis of the hysterical. To say that Byron's treatment of her drove her mad would be to talk nonsense. At the most it only gave an illusion of method to her madness, and supplied the monomania for which her unbalanced mind was waiting. William Lamb humoured her long after Byron had ceased to do so. She knew it, and, in her comparatively lucid intervals, appreciated both his forbearance and his character. "Remember," she wrote to Lady Morgan, "the only noble fellow I ever met with is William Lamb; he is to me what Shore was to Jane Shore." She also placed "William Lamb first" in the order of the objects of her affection; but, in the very letter in which she did so, she spoke of "Lord Byron, that dear, that angel, that misguided and misguiding Byron, whom I adore." We must make what we can of it; but, in truth, there is nothing to be made of it except that Lady Caroline was mad. Presently she became so obviously mad that she smashed her doctor's watch in a fit of rage and had to be placed in the charge of two female keepers. There came a day when, riding near Brocket, she met a funeral procession, and was told that it was Byron's. Then she fainted; and it was after that incident that her uncontrollable violence caused the long-postponed separation to be carried into effect. Some verses which she wrote on the occasion are printed among Lord Melbourne's papers: "_Loved One! No tear is in mine eye, Though pangs my bosom thrill, For I have learned, when others sigh, To suffer and be still. Passion, and pride, and flattery strove, They made a wreck of me; But oh, I never ceased to love, I never loved but thee._" There are two other--very similar--stanzas. The inadequacy of the expression is, perhaps, the most pathetic thing about them. A child seems to be struggling to utter the emotions of a grown-up person--a clouded mind, to be striving to clear itself under the influence of a sudden shock. And the mind in truth was, at that date, very far from clear. The drinking of laudanum mixed with brandy often helped in the clouding of it; and the end was not very far removed.