Through the winter and into the spring of 1817, Lady Caroline waited for a sign from Annabella that her trust had not been broken—that Byron did not know she had betrayed him. Following Lady Caroline’s own advice that the two women should not appear to be colluding, Annabella had maintained complete silence. Caroline was correct, however, in assuming that Lady Byron had been influenced by Caro George, who continued to point out the awkwardness created by Glenarvon and to bemoan Caroline’s liaison with Michael Bruce. Knowing she had little chance, Caroline took up her pen and wrote with her patented emotionality: “ [Y]ou have given me pain—I have thought you unkind—but I know you enough not to judge you by appearances—you may think the line of conduct you pursue towards me deserv’d & yet be assured you are wrong—for on Earth I do believe—I am one of those most sincere towards you—& you may perhaps some day believe this though now you do not….”1 To Caroline’s request for a meeting Lady Byron responded three days later with her own patented brusque candor: “It was unintentionally be assured, if I have given you pain—but as there has not of late been any communication between us, I am unable to conjecture what I have to regret on this account.” Acknowledging that she was “greatly obliged” by Caroline’s timely aid in her struggle to retain custody of her child, Annabella insisted that “the conduct I may for various reasons have thought it right to pursue has not been actuated by any motives personally reckoned towards you—If however such has been the appearance, it forms a reason why I should not make a change because you speak of a power to serve me.”2