I told her that I would take the subject into consideration, and give my opinion in a few days.  That night, after my sister and myself had retired to our own apartment, I related to her the whole history, and we spent the night in talking of it.  I was powerfully impressed with the justice and propriety of an immediate disclosure; while she, on the contrary, represented the painful consequences that would probably come upon Lady Byron from taking such a step.

Before we parted the next day, I requested Lady Byron to give me some memoranda of such dates and outlines of the general story as would enable me better to keep it in its connection; which she did.

On giving me the paper, Lady Byron requested me to return it to her when it had ceased to be of use to me for the purpose indicated.

Accordingly, a day or two after, I enclosed it to her in a hasty note, as I was then leaving London for Paris, and had not yet had time fully to consider the subject.

On reviewing my note, I can recall that then the whole history appeared to me like one of those singular cases where unnatural impulses to vice are the result of a taint of constitutional insanity.  This has always seemed to me the only way of accounting for instances of utterly motiveless and abnormal wickedness and cruelty.  These my first impressions were expressed in the hasty note written at the time:—­

’LONDON, Nov. 5, 1856.

   ’DEAREST FRIEND,—­I return these.  They have held mine eyes waking! 
   How strange! how unaccountable!  Have you ever subjected the facts to
   the judgment of a medical man learned in nervous pathology?

   ’Is it not insanity?

   “Great wits to madness nearly are allied,
   And thin partitions do their bounds divide.”

   ’But my purpose to-night is not to write you fully what I think of
   this matter.  I am going to write to you from Paris more at leisure.’

The rest of the letter was taken up in the final details of a charity in which Lady Byron had been engaged with me in assisting an unfortunate artist.  It concludes thus:—­

’I write now in all haste, en route for Paris.  As to America, all is not lost yet. {168} Farewell!  I love you, my dear friend, as never before, with an intense feeling I cannot easily express.  God bless you!

‘H.  B. S.’

The next letter is as follows:—­

’Paris, Dec. 17, 1856.

’DEAR LADY BYRON,—­The Kansas Committee have written me a letter desiring me to express to Miss ——­ their gratitude for the five pounds she sent them.  I am not personally acquainted with her, and must return these acknowledgments through you.

’I wrote you a day or two since, enclosing the reply of the Kansas
Committee to you.

’On that subject on which you spoke to me the last time we were
together, I have thought often and deeply.