In words precise, firm, and fearless, she says, 'If these statements on which Dr.
Lushington and Sir Samuel Romilly formed their opinion were false, the responsibility and the odium should rest with me only.' Christopher North did not pretend to disbelieve this statement.

He breathed not a doubt of Lady Byron's word.

He spoke of the crime indicated, as one which might have been foul as the grave's corruption, unforgivable as the sin against the Holy Ghost.

He rebuked the wife for bearing this testimony, even to save the memory of her dead father and mother, and, in the same breath, declared that she ought now to go farther, and speak fully the one awful word, and then--'a mitigated sentence, or eternal silence!' But Lady Byron took no counsel with the world, nor with the literary men of her age.

One knight, with some small remnant of England's old chivalry, set lance in rest for her: she saw him beaten back unhorsed, rolled in the dust, and ingloriously vanquished, and perceived that henceforth nothing but injury could come to any one who attempted to speak for her.
She turned from the judgments of man and the fond and natural hopes of human nature, to lose herself in sacred ministries to the downcast and suffering.