Before six weeks were over, he wrote to Moore (after some previous hankerings) that he should go abroad soon, "and alone, too." He did not go then. In April the death of Lord Wentworth occurred, causing Sir Ralph and Lady Milbanke to take the name of Noel, according to Lord Wentworth's will, and assuring the prospect of ultimate accession of wealth. Meantime, the new expenses of his married life, entered upon without any extrication from old debts, caused such embarrassment, that, after many other humiliations had been undergone, he offered his books for sale. As Lady Byron maintained a lifelong silence about the sufferings of her married life, little is known of that miserable year beyond what all the world saw: executions in the house; increasing gloom and recklessness in the husband; a bright patience and resoluteness in the wife; and an immense pity felt by the poet's adorers for his trials by a persecuting Fate. During the summer and autumn, his mention of his wife to his correspondents became less frequent and more formal. His tone about his approaching "papaship" tells nothing. He was not likely to show to such men any good or natural feelings on the occasion. In December, his daughter, Augusta Ada, was born; and early in January, he wrote to Moore so melancholy a "Heigho!" on occasion of his having been married a year, as to incite that critical observer to write him an inquiry about the state of his domestic spirits. The end was near, and the world was about to see its idol and his wife tested in moral action of a very stringent kind.
By means of the only publication ever made or authorized by Lady Byron on the subject of her domestic life, her vindication of her parents, contained in the Appendix of Moore's "Life" of the poet, we know, that, during her confinement, Lord Byron's nearest relatives were alarmed by tokens of eccentricity so marked, that they informed her, as soon as she was recovered, that they believed him insane. His confidential servant bore the same testimony; and she naturally believed it, when she resumed her place in the household, and saw how he was going on. On the sixth of January, the day after he wrote the "Heigho!" to Moore, he desired his wife, in writing, to go to her parents on the first day that it was possible for her to travel. Her physicians would not let her go earlier than the fifteenth; and on that day she went. She never saw her husband again.