Projects of travel with his sister and with various friends fell through at about the same time, for reasons which are nowhere stated, but can very easily be guessed. We cannot read the letters, dark though the allusions are, without being conscious of a thickening plot. It thickens very perceptibly when we discover Byron at Newstead at a time when Mary Chaworth, forsaken by her husband, is at Annesley. There is nearly a month's gap in the published letters at this point; but conjecture can easily fill the gap in the light of the letter from Byron to Mrs. Leigh, already quoted, which is dated November 8: "It is not Lady Caroline nor Lady Oxford; but perhaps you may guess, and if you _do_, do not tell. "You do not know what mischief your being near me might have prevented. You shall hear from me to-morrow; in the meantime, don't be alarmed. I am in _no immediate_ peril." One is further helped to understand by a letter to Moore written, after a longer silence than usual, on November 30: "Since I last wrote to you, much has occurred, good, bad, and indifferent,--not to make me forget you, but to prevent me of reminding you of one who, nevertheless, has often thought of you.... "Your French quotation was very confoundedly to the purpose,--though very _unexpectedly_ pertinent, as you may imagine by what I _said_ before, and my silence since. However, 'Richard's himself again,' and except all night, and some part of the morning, I don't think very much about the matter." The French quotation referred to is Fontenelle's: "Si je recommençais ma carrière je ferais tout ce que j'ai fait." The inference from the allusion to it, and from the two letters given, is quite clear. Something has happened--at Newstead or in the neighbourhood, as the dates demonstrate--something which Byron cannot bring himself to regret, even though he feels that it is going to make trouble for him. Hints at the possibility of a duel which follow in later letters make it not less clear that the trouble--or a part of it--may come from the indignation of an angry husband. "I shall not return his fire," Byron writes--an indication, we may take it, that a sense of guilt, and some remorse, is mingled with his passion. That is what we gather, and cannot help gathering, from the letters, in spite of their vagueness and intentional obscurity. We will take up the thread of the story from them again in a moment. In the meanwhile we will turn to the Journal and see how Byron presents the story to himself. CHAPTER XV RENEWAL AND INTERRUPTION OF RELATIONS WITH MARY CHAWORTH