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 Rh seldom visited by infection, and the little English-born girl fell one of its earliest victims. Allegra died at her convent school in the spring of 1822. Byron admitted that death was kind. "Her position in the world would scarcely have allowed her to be happy," he said, pitying remorsefully the "sinless child of sin," so harshly handicapped in life. But he felt his loss, and bitterly, though silently, mourned it. The Countess Guiccioli was with him when the tidings came. In her eyes, he had always been a fond and solicitous father; yet the violence of his distress amazed and frightened her. He sent her away, and faced his grief, and his remorse—if he felt remorse—alone. The next day, when she sought him, he said very simply, "It is God's will. She is more fortunate than we are;" and never spoke of the child again. "From that time" she adds, "he became more anxious about his daughter Ada;—so much so as to disquiet himself when the usual accounts sent him were for a post or two delayed."

Byron's letters to Shelley, to Murray, and to Scott, bear witness to the sincerity of his grief,