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innocence of all criminality; that assurance and other circumstances induced me to believe her innocent of the last offence; but of the impropriety of her conduct and total disregard of outward appearance, by which alone society can form its opinion, no one who moved in our circle could doubt. My own conduct, I admit, at that time was weak and vacillating in the extreme. I had loved her to madness for three or four years before I married her, and after we were united she had all power over me. But all idea of re-union was abruptly broken off when certain tidings reached me of her séjour in the Isle of Wight. From that moment my honour was outraged, and our re-union rendered impossible. Judge, then, of my surprise within the last three or four years to receive hints from her as to our living again together: one of these I can distinctly remember. My son Fletcher was seriously ill at her house, and I went there to see him. I was remarking to him that I was about taking a new lease of my house, when she said, "What nonsense, when there's a room for you here." Would any one believe that in 1849 such a proposal could have come from the person who, on Thursday last, denounced me in the way she did?
But to return to our money differences. When we first separated I divided my income—then only 800l. or 900l. per annum, into three portions. One I paid into Messrs Ranson's for her support, the second I allotted for payment of our debts, and the third for the three children and myself; and, after paying their expenses, I had not more than 5s. per day for myself to live upon in town, having to attend to my police court. In 1838, my cousins, Mr Vaughan and his sister, fulfilled their deceased mother's wishes, by leaving me their Yorkshire estates, and I immediately increased Mrs Norton's allowance to 400l. per annum, exclusive of her pension. She declined at first receiving it; she preferred furnishing houses and disposing of them, and leaving the tradesmen to bring their action in the superior courts. At least thirty suits were instituted against me
