234 Frank Lasccllcs and Lionel West [ x 9°9 



hold yours.' Cromer deserved it, for he has been talking a deal of 

 nonsense since he returned from Egypt about things he does not un- 

 derstand. Ladv Cromer has become a suffragette in opposition to her 

 lord. 



" Next we talked about the Sackville case, which is just now much 

 in the papers. I asked him what his recollection was about Lionel 

 West's having ever acknowledged his marriage with Pepita, and he 

 said that he had never heard him acknowledge it, though, of course, 

 they were together at the Paris Embassy. If he had acknowledged it 

 Frank would have taken his own wife to call on her. But there was 

 never question of it. Lionel was the most secretive of men. Some 

 years ago he had written to Frank to ask him what his memory was 

 on the point of such acknowledgment, and Frank had answered him 

 in the sense just given. On the other hand, there were one or two 

 curious facts within Frank's recollection. Pepita died at Arcachon 

 during the Commune, while Lionel was in charge of the Embassy at 

 Paris, and Frank was with him when he received the telegram an- 

 nouncing her death from Lord Lyons, who was at Bordeaux, which 

 was as follows : ' Votre pauvre femme vient de moitrir. Vos enfants 

 vons appelent.' Lionel asked him what he ought to do. Could he 

 leave Paris ? It was agreed that certainly he ought to go. Lionel was 

 terribly overcome, for he was devoted to her, and Frank saw him 

 off to the Orleans station in a private brougham they found in the 

 street, for there were no cabs on hire — as an affair ' de vie et 

 mortf This would seem to show that Lord Lyons recognized the 

 marriage, but nobody actually knew. John Bidwell once put the 

 question plainly to Lionel, and his answer was ' the person most 

 interested in knowing knows the whole facts.' Another curious inci- 

 dent, taken in connection with the present case, which is being tried 

 at Madrid, of a page in the entries of the marriage register having 

 been torn out, is this : It happened also while Lionel was in charge at 

 Paris. Sir Richard Wallace had been married at the Embassy, and 

 Lionel one day looking through the Register, found the entry recording 

 it and tore out the page, saying, ' the marriage is an irregular one, 

 and ought not to be here.' Atlee, who was Librarian in charge of the 

 Archives, was shocked at this, and insisted that Lionel should restore 

 the page and write an acknowledgment of its having been torn out. 

 My own impression from all this is that Lionel wished to make a legal 

 marriage with Pepita, but knew of her previous marriage, and perhaps 

 went through some form of marriage with her secretly, wishing to 

 legitimize the children one day, at least in France — that in order to 

 secure this he got the page of the Madrid register torn out which 

 would have been evidence against them, indeed of his own first 

 marriage. It is certain that he entered his later children as legitimate. 



