When Fletcher returned to London, Lady Byron sent for him, and walked the room in convulsive struggles to repress her tears and sobs, while she over and over again strove to elicit something from him which should enlighten her upon what that last message had been; but in vain:  the gates of eternity were shut in her face, and not a word had passed to tell her if he had repented.

For all that, Lady Byron never doubted his salvation.  Ever before her, during the few remaining years of her widowhood, was the image of her husband, purified and ennobled, with the shadows of earth for ever dissipated, the stains of sin for ever removed; ‘the angel in him,’ as she expressed it, ‘made perfect, according to its divine ideal.’

Never has more divine strength of faith and love existed in woman.  Out of the depths of her own loving and merciful nature, she gained such views of the divine love and mercy as made all hopes possible.  There was no soul of whose future Lady Byron despaired,—­such was her boundless faith in the redeeming power of love.

After Byron’s death, the life of this delicate creature—­so frail in body that she seemed always hovering on the brink of the eternal world, yet so strong in spirit, and so unceasing in her various ministries of mercy—­was a miracle of mingled weakness and strength.

To talk with her seemed to the writer of this sketch the nearest possible approach to talking with one of the spirits of the just made perfect.

She was gentle, artless; approachable as a little child; with ready, outflowing sympathy for the cares and sorrows and interests of all who approached her; with a naive and gentle playfulness, that adorned, without hiding, the breadth and strength of her mind; and, above all, with a clear, divining, moral discrimination; never mistaking wrong for right in the slightest shade, yet with a mercifulness that made allowance for every weakness, and pitied every sin.

There was so much of Christ in her, that to have seen her seemed to be to have drawn near to heaven.  She was one of those few whom absence cannot estrange from friends; whose mere presence in this world seems always a help to every generous thought, a strength to every good purpose, a comfort in every sorrow.

Living so near the confines of the spiritual world, she seemed already to see into it:  hence the words of comfort which she addressed to a friend who had lost a son:—­

’Dear friend, remember, as long as our loved ones are in God’s world, they are in ours.’

* * * * *

It has been thought by some friends who have read the proof-sheets of the foregoing that the author should give more specifically her authority for these statements.

The circumstances which led the writer to England at a certain time originated a friendship and correspondence with Lady Byron, which was always regarded as one of the greatest acquisitions of that visit.