She did not abandon society, however, and the tongue of gossip continued to wag.  Her immediate marriage with a former lover, Mr. Hill, was announced:  ‘il est bien bon,’ said Lady Bessborough.  Then it was whispered that Canning was ’le regnant’—­that he was with her ’not only all day, but almost all night.’  She quarrelled with Canning and became attached to Sir John Moore.  Whether she was actually engaged to marry him—­as she seems to have asserted many years later—­is doubtful; his letters to her, full as they are of respectful tenderness, hardly warrant the conclusion; but it is certain that he died with her name on his lips.  Her favourite brother, Charles, was killed beside him; and it was natural that under this double blow she should have retired from London.  She buried herself in Wales; but not for long.  In 1810 she set sail for Gibraltar with her brother James, who was rejoining his regiment in the Peninsula.  She never returned to England.

There can be no doubt that at the time of her departure the thought of a lifelong exile was far from her mind.  It was only gradually, as she moved further and further eastward, that the prospect of life in England—­at last even in Europe—­grew distasteful to her; as late as 1816 she was talking of a visit to Provence.  Accompanied by two or three English fellow travellers, her English maid, Mrs. Fry, her private physician, Dr. Meryon, and a host of servants, she progressed, slowly and in great state, through Malta and Athens, to Constantinople.  She was conveyed in battleships, and lodged with governors and ambassadors.  After spending many months in Constantinople, Lady Hester discovered that she was ‘dying to see Napoleon with her own eyes,’ and attempted accordingly to obtain passports to France.  The project was stopped by Stratford Canning, the English Minister, upon which she decided to visit Egypt, and, chartering a Greek vessel, sailed for Alexandria in the winter of 1811.  Off the island of Rhodes a violent storm sprang up; the whole party were forced to abandon the ship, and to take refuge upon a bare rock, where they remained without food or shelter for thirty hours.  Eventually, after many severe privations, Alexandria was reached in safety; but this disastrous voyage was a turning-point in Lady Hester’s career.  At Rhodes she was forced to exchange her torn and dripping raiment for the attire of a Turkish gentleman—­a dress which she never afterwards abandoned.  It was the first step in her orientalization.

She passed the next two years in a triumphal progress.  Her appearance in Cairo caused the greatest sensation, and she was received in state by the Pasha, Mehemet Ali.  Her costume on this occasion was gorgeous:  she wore a turban of cashmere, a brocaded waistcoat, a priceless pelisse, and a vast pair of purple velvet pantaloons embroidered all over in gold.  She was ushered by chamberlains with silver wands through the inner courts of the palace to a pavilion in the