That the glowing stanzas suggested to him by this scene were written upon the spot itself appears almost certain, from the letter addressed to Mr. Murray on his way back to Diodati, in which he announces the third Canto as complete, and consisting of 117 stanzas.  At Ouchy, near Lausanne,—­the place from which that letter is dated—­he and his friend were detained two days, in a small inn, by the weather:  and it was there, in that short interval, that he wrote his “Prisoner of Chillon,” adding one more deathless association to the already immortalised localities of the Lake.

On his return from this excursion to Diodati, an occasion was afforded for the gratification of his jesting propensities by the avowal of the young physician that—­he had fallen in love.  On the evening of this tender confession they both appeared at Shelley’s cottage—­Lord Byron, in the highest and most boyish spirits, rubbing his hands as he walked about the room, and in that utter incapacity of retention which was one of his foibles, making jesting allusions to the secret he had just heard.  The brow of the Doctor darkened as this pleasantry went on, and, at last, he angrily accused Lord Byron of hardness of heart.  “I never,” said he, “met with a person so unfeeling.”  This sally, though the poet had evidently brought it upon himself, annoyed him most deeply.  “Call me cold-hearted—­me insensible!” he exclaimed, with manifest emotion—­“as well might you say that glass is not brittle, which has been cast down a precipice, and lies dashed to pieces at the foot!”

In the month of July he paid a visit to Copet, and was received by the distinguished hostess with a cordiality the more sensibly felt by him as, from his personal unpopularity at this time, he had hardly ventured to count upon it.[123] In her usual frank style, she took him to task upon his matrimonial conduct—­but in a way that won upon his mind, and disposed him to yield to her suggestions.  He must endeavour, she told him, to bring about a reconciliation with his wife, and must submit to contend no longer with the opinion of the world.  In vain did he quote her own motto to Delphine, “Un homme peut braver, une femme doit se succomber aux opinions du monde;”—­her reply was, that all this might be very well to say, but that, in real life, the duty and necessity of yielding belonged also to the man.  Her eloquence, in short, so far succeeded, that he was prevailed upon to write a letter to a friend in England, declaring himself still willing to be reconciled to Lady Byron,—­a concession not a little startling to those who had so often, lately, heard him declare that, “having done all in his power to persuade Lady Byron to return, and with this view put off as long as he could signing the deed of separation, that step being once taken, they were now divided for ever.”