Then followed for Lady Sarah a brief period of fearful joy, of intoxicating passion.  Far away near the Scottish border she and her lover spent halcyon days together.  Their favourite walk by the banks of the Leader is known to-day as the “Lovers’ Walk.”  It was a foolish paradise in which they were living, and a rude awaking was inevitable.  After three months of bliss Lord William’s family brought such pressure to bear on him that the lovers were compelled to separate—­he to travel abroad, she to find a refuge from her shame under the roof of her brother, Charles, Duke of Richmond, at Goodwood, where, with her child (but not Sir Thomas Bunbury’s), she spent a dozen years in penitence and isolation.

The life which had dawned so fairly seemed to be finally merged in night.  Her betrayed husband had procured a divorce; and although he was chivalry itself in his forgiveness of and kindness to her, she realised that there was no hope of reunion with him.  Days of weeping, nights of remorse, were her portion.  But though she little dared to hope it, bright days were still in store for her—­a happy and honourable wifehood, and the pride and blessing of children to rise up to do her honour.

It was the coming of the Hon. George Napier, an old Army friend of her brother, that heralded the new dawn for her darkened life.  There were few handsomer men in England than this tall, stalwart son of the sixth Lord Napier, who is described as “faultless in figure and features.”  When he met Lady Sarah, under the roof of his old friend, her brother, he was still mourning the wife whom he had recently buried in New York; but the sight of such suffering and beauty allied touched a heart which he had thought dead to passion.  That she was as poor as he was, and many years older mattered nothing to him.  He soon realised that his only hope of happiness lay in winning her.  In vain the lady protested that she was not fit to be his wife.

“He knows,” she wrote to Lady Susan, “I do love him; and being certain of that, he laughs at every objection that is started, for he says that, loving me to the degrees he does, he is quite sure never to repent marrying me.”

Lady Sarah’s family put every possible obstacle in the way of the proposed union, but the masterful soldier had his way; and one August day in 1781 Captain Napier led his tarnished but loved and loving bride to the altar.  For many years poverty was their lot; but they laughed at their empty purse and found their reward in mutual devotion and the sight of their children growing in strength and beauty by their side.  Of their five sons, three won laurels on many battlefields and died generals; one of the trio was the famous conqueror of Scinde, another was the historian of the Peninsular War.

When, after twenty-three years of ideally happy life together, Colonel Napier (as he had become) died, his widow was disconsolate.

     “How I wish I could go with him,” she wrote; “the
     gentlest, bravest man who ever brought sunshine and
     solace into a woman’s darkened heart.”