Page:English laws for women in the nineteenth century.djvu/141

129 of a true and gentle woman, I owe any further negotiation; with Mr Norton after that surreptitious letter was sent.

Sir John did tell him, in the interview they had on the subject, how base he considered his conduct; and dismissed him with such violent and contemptuous reproaches, that all acquaintance appeared ended between them. Then, in my despair, learning the wondrous treachery of the double part' Mr Norton had played, and the end of all my hopes about my children, Sir John Bayley's took pity upon me. She did not know me; I was, to her, nothing but a slandered stranger: but she came to see me and comfort me. Pure-hearted, high-minded, and herself a mother,—she strove to stand between me and my bitter disappointment. did, what her husband was too full of just anger and scorn to wrote to Mr Norton,— pleaded for those children,—who did not live with him, who were no pleasure to him, who were merely his imprisoned hostages for power;  dug for pity in that sterile heart; and wrote, and strove, and wasted, kindness and time for my sake. Mr Norton availed himself, of her interference, to renew the correspondence,—I have his answer to all those letters,—and his bitterest complaint is, that I had said "I would not return to him!"

Sir John Bayley refused to notice Mr Norton's comments on his published letter; or these and other facts might have been stated. He scorned to reply to the taunts showered upon him for venturing to make the truth known; taunts so bitter, that it would seem as if, instead of an English gentleman acting as referee, he had been a Roman Catholic priest breaking the seal of the confessional, or an accomplice turning King's evidence. To be, is, with Mr Norton, synonymous with being. The bugbear of his life is the terrible motto, "Magna est veritas et prevalebit!" Sir John had no right to ruin his character,—and his character was ruined in proportion as his conduct was made public. And this brings me to certain passages