.

CONCLUSION.
In leaving this subject, I have an appeal to make to the men, and more especially to the women, who have been my readers.
In justice to Lady Byron, it must be remembered that this publication of her story is not her act, but mine.

I trust you have already conceded, that, in so severe and peculiar a trial, she had a right to be understood fully by her immediate circle of friends, and to seek of them counsel in view of the moral questions to which such very exceptional circumstances must have given rise.

Her communication to me was not an address to the public: it was a statement of the case for advice.

True, by leaving the whole, unguarded by pledge or promise, it left discretionary power with me to use it if needful.
You, my sisters, are to judge whether the accusation laid against Lady Byron by the 'Blackwood,' in 1869, was not of so barbarous a nature as to justify my producing the truth I held in my hands in reply.
The 'Blackwood' claimed a right to re-open the subject because it was not a private but a public matter.