to go to Yarmouth to await her husband. Under ordinary conditions
there would have been little to challenge remark, in the decision not
to leave the feeble old man, her husband's father, who depended much
upon her, for the period of uncertain duration during which she might
have to wait at Yarmouth, in those days of sailing-vessels and head
winds. Coining as her husband did, hand in hand with the woman whose
name had been scandalously linked with his for nearly two years, the
absence easily took on the appearance of cold and reserved censure.
Unquestionably, if Lady Nelson wished above all things to win her
husband back, and cared more for that than for her own humiliation,
more or less, the best fighting chance would have been to meet him at
once, with a smile on her face and words of love on her lips.
Considering the flagrancy of the affair throughout Europe, and the
antecedents of Lady Hamilton, it may be permitted to doubt whether,
regarded as a struggle for possession, many women would have thought
the game worth the candle; although Lady Nelson did not then know that
her husband expected soon to be a father, by the woman whom he at once
brought to her apartments and presented to her.

In the scanty details that have been transmitted to us concerning Lady
Nelson, there is little to appeal to the imagination, or to impress
one strongly with her attractions; but candor to her surely compels
the admission that, to await her husband in their own home, to greet
him alone, without the observation even of beloved outsiders, was no
singular impulse in a tender and reserved woman. A seaside hotel and
the inevitable clamor of the multitude do not fit in well with the
emotions that would naturally stir her, and a very little tact, a very
little sympathy, would have induced Nelson to let the Hamiltons go
their way for one evening, while he went directly and alone to her and
his father. She had been sorely tried, and as far as is known had