Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/18

 so paltry and malevolent, and so utterly foreign to Lady Burton's generous and truthful character, that they may be dismissed with contempt. The many friends who knew and loved her have not credited them for one moment, and the animus with which they were written is so obvious that they have carried little weight with the general public. But three specific charges call for particular refutation, as silence on them might be misunderstood. I refer to the statements that Lady Burton was the cause of her husband's recall from Damascus; that she acted in bad faith in the matter of his conversion to the Roman Catholic Church; and to the impugning of the motives which led her to burn The Scented Garden. I should like to emphasize the fact that none of these controversial questions formed part of the original scheme of this book, and they would not have been alluded to had it not been for Miss Stisted's unprovoked attack upon Lady Burton's memory. It is only with reluctance, and solely in a defensive spirit, that they are touched upon now. Even so, I have suppressed a good deal, for there is no desire on the part of Lady Burton's relatives or myself to justify her at the expense of the husband whom she loved, and who loved her. But in vindicating her it has been necessary to tell the truth. If therefore,