This chapter talks about the incest myth of Lord Byron's love of his half-sister, Augusta Leigh. It indicates how widespread is the belief Byron had an incestuous relationship with his sister: as he didn't have a sister that can't be right. All we have are rumours circulated by Byron, repeated by Caroline Lamb, and reiterated by his wife. That the trail leads back to him is suggestive: he cannot have failed to realize the incest myth bolstered that of his heterosexuality, which in turn concealed his interest in 15-year-old boys. Incest was shocking and disreputable, but in ways that might have enriched his reputation; his interest in boys might have destroyed it. In this case, as in others, the truth is more revealing than the lie: the ‘crimes’ to which Byron was willing to confess were not invariably those of which he was guilty.