A ROMANCE IN REAL LIFE.

Evening Star, Issue 3090, 14 January 1873, Page 3

A ROMANCE IN REAL LIFE.

A most extraordinary case has recently been heard in the Court of Divorce in London, before Lord Penzance, the Judge of the Court. '1 he Hon. Henry Loftus, the nephew of the Marquis of Ely, has had his domestic circumstances revealed to the world, and it would have been well for him and for his own family had he cou ealpd bia sorrows in his own breast. It appears from evidence taken before the Court that the Hon. Henry Loftus married a Miss Adelaine Montgomery, whom he became acquainted with at Lady Palmerston’s. They went to live in Brussels for the sake of economy, where a child was loom. They mixed with the best society there, and often dined with the King and Queen of the Belgians, Amongst other acquaintanceships formed was one with Baron Steiner, a handsome young Belgian, who was a good musician and wrote beautiful love s mnets. Returning on one occasion from a vis t to Paris, Mr Loftus found Bar n Steiner half intoxicated sitting in the drawing-room with his wife. The Baron showed Mr Loftus a sonnet which he had indited to Mrs Loftus, and he was thereupon kicked out of the house. A challenge and duel tol!owed, and Baron Steiner was shot dead. Immediately after the duel Mr 1 oftus and his wife separated at the request of the latter. Mr Loftus took up his residence in Loudon, and Mrs Loftus, with her daughter Emmeline, remained in Brussels, tr is Loftus was a woman of ungovernable passion, and twice threw a carving knife at her daughter. Unable to live with her mother, Emmeline Loftus, when 18 years of age, left Brussels secretly, and proceeded to London, where she pbtaiped a situation as a governess. tone Sad never seen her father subsequent to the separation of her parents during her infancy, wjjiile walking in Regent*.* Park one day she made the acquaintance cf a gentleman of about forty years of age, who proposed marriage to her. and she accepted him. Before the time fixed for the marriage he took her to a residence in Hana place, where she became his mistress One day while she was confined to her room sick, her lover, on look* lug through her papers, discovered a photograph of his wife, and inquiring the name of the original of the portrait, learned tha f she must Ge the girl’s mother, and that he was living with hih own daughttr. 'lhe reason the discovery had not been made before was owing to the fact that he had been going under the assumed name of Henry Houghton. Mr Loftus, by the death of the Marquis of Ely end bia grandmother, had become worth Lls, 00 a year, and he settled a handsome allowance upon his daughter. He proceed d to Brussels and informed his vUe of the unfortunate events related above,

md expressed in strong terms his misery. Vlrs i.oftus, dissatisfied with the smallness her allowance now that her husband had lecome wealthy, insisted that they should again live together as man and wife. Mr Loftus would not consi nt to this, whereupon, as Mr Lofcus had no evidence against his wife in re erence to any improper intrigues whh the Baron Steiner, she commenced a t-ui 1 ; against him for a restitution of conjugal rights. Under the peculiar circumstances of the case, seeing that Mr Loftus had committed no crime of which the Divorce Court could take cognisance, Karon Penzance had no alternative but to reinstate Mrs Loftus in her original marriage rights.