However that may have been, the deed of separation was ready for signing. As Lady Caroline put it: “If I will but sign a paper, all my rich relations will protect me, and I shall, no doubt, go with an Almack ticket to heaven.” All the parties whose signatures were required were assembled, and Lamb went first to the room where she was, in order to speak to her about their son. The others waited and waited; at length, growing impatient, her brother went to see the cause of the delay. He found her seated beside her husband feeding him with tiny scraps of transparent bread and butter. And so for a time things remained as they were. Byron had married in 1815, and the next year was separated from his wife, and left England for ever. To her credit it must be said that Lady Caroline never forgot Byron. With all her caprice, the episode made a lasting impression on her mind. In November 1816 she wrote to John Murray, evidently considering she had every right to do so, asking him to let her see Byron’s new poems before publication. The conclusion of her note proves that her old sprightliness had not abandoned her: “Believe me, therefore, sincerely thankful for what I am going to receive--as the young lady said to a duchess when she was desired by her parents to say ‘Grace.’” Murray did not answer, so Lady Caroline wrote again, repeating her request with the adjuration: “Let me entreat you to remember a maxim I have found very useful to me, that there is nothing in this life worth quarrelling about, and that half the people we are offended with never intended to give us cause.” In August 1818 Lady Morgan, calling one day on Lady Caroline at Melbourne House, was received in her bedroom, and found her lying on a couch, wrapped in fine muslins, full of grace and cordiality. In the bow window of the room there stood fastened to the ground the chair in which Byron had sat to Sanders for the picture painted by Lady Caroline’s desire.