on the ground in a frenzy, which she believed was affected to conceal the coldness and malignity of his heart,—­an affectation which at that time never failed to meet with the tenderest commiseration.  I could find by some implications, not followed up by me, lest she might have condemned herself afterwards for her involuntary disclosures, that he soon attempted to corrupt her principles, both with respect to her own conduct and her latitude for his.  She saw the precipice on which she stood, and kept his sister with her as much as possible.  He returned in the evenings from the haunts of vice, where he made her understand he had been, with manners so profligate!  “O the wretch!” said I.  “And had he no moments of remorse?” “Sometimes he appeared to have them.  One night, coming home from one of his lawless parties, he saw me so indignantly collected, and bearing all with such a determined calmness, that a rush of remorse seemed to come over him.  He called himself a monster, though his sister was present, and threw himself in agony at my feet.  I could not—­no—­I could not forgive him such injuries.  He had lost me for ever!  Astonished at the return of virtue, my tears, I believe, flowed over his face, and I said, ’Byron, all is forgotten:  never, never shall you hear of it more!’ He started up, and, folding his arms while he looked at me, burst into laughter.  ‘What do you mean?’ said I.  ’Only a philosophical experiment; that’s all,’ said he.  ’I wished to ascertain the value of your resolutions.’” I need not say more of this prince of duplicity, except that varied were his methods of rendering her wretched, even to the last.  When her lovely little child was born, and it was laid beside its mother on the bed, and he was informed he might see his daughter, after gazing at it with an exulting smile, this was the ejaculation that broke from him:  “Oh, what an implement of torture have I acquired in you!” Such he rendered it by his eyes and manner, keeping her in a perpetual alarm for its safety when in his presence.  All this reads madder than I believe he was:  but she had not then made up her mind to disbelieve his pretended insanity, and conceived it best to intrust her secret with the excellent Dr. Baillie; telling him all that seemed to regard the state of her husband’s mind, and letting his advice regulate her conduct.  Baillie doubted of his derangement; but, as he did not reckon his own opinion infallible, he wished her to take precautions as if her husband were so.  He recommended her going to the country, but to give him no suspicion of her intentions of remaining there, and, for a short time, to show no coldness in her letters, till she could better ascertain his state.  She went, regretting, as she told me, to wear any semblance but the truth.  A short time disclosed the story to the world.  He acted the part of a man driven to despair by her inflexible resentment and by the arts of a governess (once a servant in the