When I discovered that he was married, I asked him to bring his wife to dinner, which he did, and directy I saw her I said: 

“I do hope, Mrs. Asquith, you have not minded your husband dining here without you, but I rather gathered Hampstead was too far away for him to get back to you from the House of Commons.  You must always let me know and come with him whenever it suits you.”

In making this profound and attaching friendship with the stranger of that House of Commons dinner, I had placed myself in a difficult position when Helen Asquith died.  To be a stepwife and a stepmother was unthinkable, but at the same time the moment had arrived when a decision—­involving a great change in my life—­had become inevitable.  I had written to Peter Flower before we parted every day for nine years—­with the exception of the months he had spent flying from his creditors in India—­and I had prayed for him every night, but it had not brought more than happiness to both of us; and when I deliberately said good-bye to him I shut down a page of my life which, even if I had wished to, I could never have reopened.  When Henry told me he cared for me, that unstifled inner voice which we all of us hear more or less indistinctly told me I would be untrue to myself and quite unworthy of life if, when such a man came knocking at the door, I did not fling it wide open.  The rumour that we were engaged to be married caused alarm amounting to consternation in certain circles.  Both Lord Rosebery and Lord Randolph Churchill, without impugning me in any way, deplored the marriage, nor were they by any means alone in thinking such a union might ruin the life of a promising politician.  Some of my own friends were equally apprehensive from another point of view; to start my new life charged with a ready-made family of children brought up very differently from myself, with a man who played no games and cared for no sport, in London instead of in the country, with no money except what he could make at the Bar, was, they thought, taking too many risks.

My Melton friends said it was a terrible waste that I was not marrying a sporting man and told me afterwards that they nearly signed a round-robin to implore me never to give up hunting, but feared I might think it impertinent.

The rumour of my engagement caused a sensation in the East-end of London as well as the West.  The following was posted to me by an anonymous well-wisher: 

At the meeting of the “unemployed” held on Tower Hill yesterday afternoon, John E. Williams, the organiser appointed by the Social Democratic Federation, said that on the previous day they had gone through the West-end squares and had let the “loafers” living there know that they were alive.  On the previous evening he had seen an announcement which, at first sight, had caused tears to run down his face, for he had thought it read, “Mr. Asquith going to be murdered.”  However, it turned out that Mr. Asquith was going to be married, and he accordingly