testify for the state. Bowman in 1903 was a doorkeeper at the Madison Square Garden Theater.

“I knew Stanford White and Harry Thaw,” Bowman swore. “A few nights after Christmas, 1903, Stanford White came up to me after the show and wanted to know if Miss Nesbit had gone home. I told him she had. He replied: ‘You are a liar.’ I told him to go back on the stage and see for himself.

“When he returned, and as he passed me he pulled a pistol from his pocket and muttered: “I’ll find and kill that— — — — — — — — before daylight.’”

“Did you tell Harry Thaw of this threat against his life?” asked Delmas.

“Yes, I met him on Fifth avenue and told him I wanted to speak with him regarding Miss Nesbit. I then told him of the incident at the theater and of White’s threat.”

“What was Mr. White’s condition when he made the threat?”

“He was black in the face with anger.”

This ended the direct examination of Bowman, and Justice Fitzgerald said:

“If there are any persons in the courtroom whose sense of propriety would be offended by the testimony of this witness the court will give them an opportunity now to withdraw.”

“We must ask the court to bear with us in bringing out this testimony,” explained Delmas, “but it is essential.”

“It is perfectly right and proper,” Justice Fitzgerald quickly assured the lawyer. “There are ladies here, however, and I think they should be given the opportunity to withdraw if they so desire.”

The Countess of Yarmouth and Mrs. George L. Carnegie quickly left the courtroom.

Mrs. Evelyn Nesbit Thaw and May McKenzie arrived at the courthouse some time after the session had begun.

In cross-examination by Mr. Jerome the witness clung to his story. He added that “The Girl From Dixie” was playing at the Roof Garden Theater at the time, and that White and Thaw even then were rivals for Miss Nesbit’s affections.

The next witness was Martin Green, a newspaper man, who saw Thaw just after the shooting. He was asked as to Thaw’s manner after he committed the murder.

“He held the pistol high above his head,” said Mr. Green, “He was very pale, his eyes seemed about to pop out of his head, and his hair was hanging well down on his forehead.”

Dr. John Franklin Bingaman of Pittsburg, one of the Thaw alienists, testified he had known Harry Thaw for thirty years. He attended him when he was two or three years old. Thaw had children’s diseases and St. Vitus’ dance.

Dr. Bingaman said that Thaw’s condition might be called a neurotic temperament.

Mr. Jerome asked only two questions in cross-examination. In response to them Dr. Bingaman said Thaw had the St. Vitus’ dance when he was six or seven years old.

At the end of this day’s hearing Harry Thaw was in a frenzy. In his cell he denounced his lawyers for their determination to make insanity the defense. Adding to his troubles was the fact that his beautiful young wife was to go on the stand next day and bare her tragic life to the public gaze.

Mrs. Thaw dreaded the ordeal. She was barred from the court-room during the latter part of the early testimony, but extra editions of the newspapers were brought to her hourly, and she read the testimony she was not allowed to hear. She was ghastly pale, and at times appeared about to collapse.

Next day brought the crisis in the most sensational trial of the twentieth century, with the fair, slender Evelyn—the leader in the battle to save her husband’s life.

CHAPTER VII.

A Human Sacrifice on the Altar of Love.

Beauty in distress—beauty that made a powerful impression on judge, jury and spectators, intensified a hundredfold the dramatic climax of the trial. Frail, young, her fair name shattered, her love for husband surpassing that of Thisbe for Pyramus, she laid down her bleeding heart upon the altar of the soul, and gave herself a living sacrifice to save her husband from the electric chair.

In the midst of her story of her shame, the beautiful bride broke down and cried bitterly. Restoratives were applied, and, fighting with the life of her loved one as the stake, the piteously fragile and surpassingly pretty young wife continued with the story of her ruin at the hands of a modern Nero, for so she painted White.

Mrs. Thaw was on the stand two hours, and her direct examination had not been concluded when the luncheon adjournment was taken. As she walked from the witness chair along the passageway back of the jury box she felt along the wall with the finger tips of her left hand as if about to faint. From scarlet her face had paled to the whiteness of a sheet.

Except when she broke down when going into the details of her experience with White the girl spoke in a clear, soft voice. On the witness stand she appeared for the first time in court unveiled, and her beauty was remarked on all sides. It is of a girlish type, a mass of dark hair framing a face of daintily molded features.

“Evelyn Nesbit Thaw,” called the clerk in a tragic voice, as soon as the trial opened for what was fated to be its greatest day.

The court room was hushed. Three hundred newspaper workers, flashing bulletins to every American city, to London, Paris, and isles beyond the seas, hardly breathed, leaned forward excitedly, and the crisis in the greatest legal battle ever fought was on!

The familiar figure in blue, now for the first time without her veil, appeared from the judge’s chambers. She stood near the jury box as Clerk Penny administered the oath.

“I swear,” repeated Mrs. Thaw in an audible voice at the end of the formal declaration, which was made just a little more impressive than usual. “I solemnly swear before the ever living God to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!”

Mrs. Thaw took her place in the witness chair calmly. She looked steadily ahead at Mr. Delmas and gave her answers to his first questions in a clear and firm voice, which was soft in quality.

Harry Thaw smiled at his wife as she walked to the witness stand, but she apparently did not see him at the moment. After she was seated, however, she smiled faintly at the prisoner and blushed crimson.

In answer to Mr. Delmas’ first question Mrs. Thaw said she was born Dec. 25, 1884. She told of going to the Cafe Martin to dinner the evening of June 25 with her husband, Thomas McCaleb, and Truxton Beale.

“While you were at the Cafe Martin did you see Stanford White?” asked Delmas.

“Yes,” answered Evelyn.

“At what time did you see him?”

“I don’t know; it was some time after we arrived.”

“Where did you first see him?”

“Coming in at the Fifth avenue entrance.”

“How long did you see him?”

“I don’t know. He passed through and went on to the balcony.”

“While he was on the balcony could you see him?”

“No.”

“Did you see him leave?”

“Yes. I saw him come in from the balcony and go out of the Fifth avenue entrance.”

“While you were in the Cafe Martin, did you call for a pencil?”

“Yes.”

“From whom?”

“I think from Mr. McCaleb. He said he did not have one.”

Mrs. Thaw said that McCaleb sat on her left, Beale on her right, and Thaw was facing her.

“Did you ask again for a pencil?”

“Yes, I got one from some one, I don’t remember whom.”

“Did you write a note?”

“I did.”

“On what?”

“A slip of paper. I think Mr. McCaleb gave it to me.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I passed it to Mr. Thaw.”

“What did Mr. Thaw do?”

“He said to me: ‘Are you all right?’ I said: ‘Yes.’”

“What was your condition as to being disturbed or affected?”

Mr. Jerome’s objection to the question was sustained.

“Was there anything unusual in your manner that was visible to others?”

Again an objection was sustained.

“After this how long did you remain?”

“Only a short time.”

“Mrs. Thaw, have you that slip of paper now?”

“I have not.”

“Have you seen it since?”

“No.”

“Did what you wrote refer to Stanford White?”

Mr. Jerome objected on the ground that the note itself was the best evidence.

“After you left the restaurant, you went to Madison Square Roof garden?” asked Mr. Delmas.

“Yes.”

“About what time was it?”

“About the middle of the first act.”

Mrs. Thaw said that she sat in a seat beside Mr. Beale and Mr. McCaleb. Her husband went to the back of the theater, she said. He was away about fifteen minutes, when he returned and took a seat beside her.

“How long did he remain at your side?”

“About half an hour.”

“What was his manner then?”

“It seemed to be the same as ever.”

“Did you talk about anything special then?”

“No, just general.”

“Who suggested going away from the garden?”

“I did.”

“The play wasn’t interesting to you?”

“Not a bit,” said the witness.

“How did you start when you went out?”

“I think that Mr. McCaleb and I were in the lead and Mr. Thaw and Mr. Beale followed.”

“How far had you gone when something happened?”

“Almost to the elevator. I had turned around to speak to Mr. Thaw.”

“How far were you from Mr. White then?”

“About as far as the end of the jury box.”

“You saw Mr. White sitting there?”

“I did.”

“Did you see Mr. Thaw then?”

“Not until a minute or so afterward. He was directly in front of Mr. White, standing with his arm up in the air.”

“Did you hear shots fired?”

“Yes, immediately after I saw Mr. White I heard the shots.”

“How many shots?”

“Three shots.”

“What did you say?”

“I said to Mr. McCaleb: ‘I think he has shot him.’”

“Did Mr. Thaw come over to where you were?”

“Yes, I asked him what he had done. He leaned over and kissed me and said: ‘I have probably saved your life.’”

“What happened then?”

“I left.”

“You were taken from there?”

“Yes, I think with Mr. McCaleb and Mr. Beale.”

“You left and did not return?”

“Yes.”

“You said that you are the wife of the defendant?”

“Yes.”

“When were you married?”

“On April 4, 1905.”

“Where?”

“In Pittsburg, at the residence of Dr. McEwen, pastor of the Third Presbyterian church.”

“Who were present?”

“I think Josiah Thaw, Mr. Thaw’s brother,” the witness went on, after a moment.

“When had Mr. Thaw proposed for the first time?”

“In June, 1903, in Paris.”

“At the time did you refuse him?”

“I did.”

“Did you state in explaining your refusal of his proposal that it had something to do with Stanford White?”

“Yes.”

“State what happened.”

“Mr. Thaw told me that he loved me and wanted to marry me. I stared at him for a moment and then he said, ‘Don’t you care for me?’ and I said that I did. Then he asked me what was the matter. I said ‘nothing.’ ‘Why won’t you marry me?’ he said. He put his hands on my shoulder and asked, ‘Is it because of Stanford White?’ and I said ‘yes.’ Then he told me he would never love any one else or marry any one else. I started to cry. He said he wanted me to tell him the whole thing. Then I began to tell him how I first met Stanford White.”

At this frail Evelyn collapsed utterly. Falling back in her chair, her beautiful features ghastly pale, she murmured:

“I can’t go on! I can’t! I can’t!”

The court windows were opened, an alienist who was present applied restoratives, and in a few minutes Mrs. Thaw was able to go on to the story of her ruin.

Florence Evelyn Nesbit was a particularly interesting child, very quiet, somewhat shy, and did not easily make friends with anyone, but when one did gain her confidence she was a loyal friend. She was a very beautiful child and had a remarkably sweet voice for one so tender in years.

Her gift was so marked that she made her first public appearance at the age of 5. It was at a memorial service in the Methodist church of which her parents were members. It was held in honor of the members who had died during the year. The church was decorated for the occasion with an immense bank of evergreens completely screening the pulpit.

In the midst of a solemn hush in the service came the dulcet voice of a child singing. It was little Florence Evelyn, hidden behind the evergreens, and in tones that will never be forgotten by the hearers, and which were clear and distinct in all parts of the edifice, came the words of the hymn, “We Are Going Down the Valley One by One.” Before the song was half finished nearly the entire audience was moved to tears.

Softly, tremulously, yet distinctly, came the impressive burden of the song. It was a splendid triumph for the child, and it still lingers in the hearts of the people who were there, its remembrance helped them in the midst of her trials to sympathize with and pity her.

CHAPTER VIII.

Evelyn Reveals White as a Fearful Monster.

However, half a score of women managed to succeed. They were attired in their gayest costumes, in marked contrast with the costume of Mrs. Thaw.

Evelyn on the stand did not look even her 23 years. She was dressed in a plain dark blue gown, with a long coat and wore a broad white linen collar. Her hat was dark and low in the crown, with a broad soft brim, and trimmed with a small bunch of violets. She wore her hair in a loose knot low on her neck, tied with a large black ribbon. Her face, which until she took the stand, was unusually pale, was first flushed, then ghastly in its pallor. It was marked with delicate eye-brows and long lashes. Her eyes were large and dark, and appealing, and her dark hair required frequent brushing back from her eyes. Her slender figure was tense with excitement, and her voice was usually firm and clear.

Even while the women were fighting their way into the room, the questioning was resumed. Mrs. Thaw told of the startling crime of Stanford White, that blighted her young life, and made her beauty a mockery.

Attorney Delmas, ever alert to forestall the mass of objections by Jerome at every opportunity, cautioned the witness:

“Be kind enough to remember you are to omit,” said Mr. Delmas, “in relating the narrative of what you told Mr. Thaw, the name of any other person save that of Mr. White. Now continue.”

“A young lady asked my mother several times to

let me go out with her to lunch,” said the fragile beauty, Mrs. Thaw. “She came again and again to me before I sent her to my mother, finally, and she said, ‘All right.’ My mother finally consented.”

“Proceed.”

“On the day I was to go my mother dressed me and I went with Miss — —, the other young lady, in a hansom, hoping we would go to the ballroom, because I wanted to see it. But we went straight down to Broadway, through Twenty-fourth street up to a dingy looking door. The young lady jumped out and asked me to follow her.”

Mr. Jerome objected to the form of the narrative, and he asked: “Did you relate all that to Mr. Thaw?”

“Yes,” said the witness. “He told me to tell him everything.”

“By the way,” interjected Delmas, “what was the date of that event?”

“As nearly as I can remember,” with a pucker of forehead, “it was in August, 1901.”

“You were then 16 years and some months old?”

“Well, now I want you to tell of your first meeting with Stanford White just as you told it to Mr. Thaw on that day,” directed Delmas.

The show girl said that a chorus girl, Edna Goodrich, asked her to a luncheon party where she would meet White. She and Edna took a cab and went to the studio on West Twenty-fourth street. The witness said the doors seemed to open of themselves.

“We went upstairs,” said Evelyn, “and there I met a man who was introduced to me as Stanford White. I thought him an ugly man. There was a table already set for four. Another gentleman came later. I remember Mr. White teased me about my hair, which I wore down my back, and my short skirt, which reached to my shoe tops. After supper we went up two flights of stairs more, and in the room was a large red velvet swing. Mr. White put me in the swing and swung me very hard. When we swung very hard one foot crashed through a large Japanese umbrella which hung from the ceiling.”

“Your mother dressed you to go?”

“Yes.”

“I must caution you to tell only what you told Mr. Thaw.”

“I will,” said the witness, and went on; “The dingy door opened, nobody seeming to open it.”

“What did you do then?”

“We went up some steps to another door, which opened to some other apartment. I stopped and asked the young lady where we were going and she said: ‘It’s all right.’ A man’s voice called down ‘Hello.’”

“Who was it?”

“It was Stanford White,” said the witness clearly.

“What did you find in the room or studio to which you went?”

“A table set for four.”

“This is all what you told Mr. Thaw,” put in Mr. Jerome.

“It was,” said young Mrs. Thaw, “I told him everything.”

There was a halt in the testimony here while Mr. Jerome and Mr. Delmas whispered.

“How were you dressed?” asked Mr. Delmas.

“I wore a short dress, with my hair down my back.”

The witness said they went up into another room, where a big Japanese umbrella was swinging.

Mr. Jerome objected to the testimony on the ground that he would have no opportunity to prove or disprove the facts alleged. Mr. Delmas said the defense would offer no objection to the district attorney probing the correctness of the facts.

Mrs. Thaw then said that afterward she and her companion went for a drive to the park, then returned to the house with White. She said when she got home she told her mother everything that happened.

“Did your mother subsequently receive a letter from Stanford White?” was asked.

“She did.”

“What was in the letter?”

“It asked my mother to call on Mr. White at 160 Fifth avenue.”

“Did you tell Mr. Thaw about that?”

“I did.”

“When your mother returned did she tell you anything?”

“She did.”

“What did your mother tell you?”

“He asked her to take me to a dentist and have my teeth fixed and for her to have her own fixed, too. She said: ‘No; that it was a very strange thing.’ Mr. White told her that he did that for the other Florodora girls.”

“When did you next see White?”

“I saw him in the studio. I got a note from him previously inviting me to a party and saying a carriage would be waiting for me on the corner. Before that he had sent me a hat, a feather boa, and a cape. There was another man and girl with us.”

Mr. Delmas mentioned the names of the others to Mr. Jerome.

“Where did you go?”

“To the studio in Madison Square tower. We had a very nice time there. Mr. White said I was only to have one glass of champagne, and that I was to be brought home early. I was brought home early to the door of my house. I told Mr. Thaw that we had several parties of this kind in the tower.”

“Did you see Mr. White again?”

“Yes, he came to see my mother, told her that I would be all right in New York, and that he would take care of me.”

Mrs. Thaw said she met White in September, 1901, in a studio in East Twenty-second street. The door opened of itself, she said, and the house looked at first as if no one lived there. She said that she went upstairs and met Mr. White, a photographer, and another man.

The witness whispered the name of the man to Mr. Jerome, who wrote it down.

“What did you see there?”

“There was a lot of expensive gowns there.”

“What happened?”

“I went into the dressing-room to put on the dress. Mr. White knocked at the door and asked if I needed any help. I said, ‘No.’”

Mrs. Thaw related in detail her experience in the photographic studio and said she posed until she was very tired and that White, who had come in, ordered food and they had something to eat. The photographer left, she said, and after they had lunched she went into a dressing room to remove her kimono and put on her dress.

“I shut the door while I was inside,” added the witness. “Mr. White came to the door, knocked and asked me if I wanted any help. I said: ‘No.’”

The former artist’s model testified that she drank but one glass of champagne and when she was dressed she got into a carriage and was taken back to the hotel.

“The next night,” she continued, “I got a note from Mr. White asking me to come down to the studio for luncheon after the theater with some of his friends. A carriage would call for me, and would take me home after the party, he wrote. I went down to the Twenty-fourth street studio again and found Mr. White and no one else there.

“‘What do you think,’ he said to me, ‘the others have turned us down.’ Then I told him I had better go home, and he told me that I had better sit down and have some fruit. So I took off my hat and coat. Mr. White told me he had other floors in the garden, and that I had not seen all of his place. He would take me around and show me, he said.

“So he took me up some stairs to the floor above, where there were very beautiful decorations,” went on Mrs. Thaw. “I played for him, and he took me into another room. That room was a bedroom. On a small table stood a bottle of champagne and one glass. Mr. White poured out just one glass for me, and I paid no attention to it. Mr. White went away, came back and said: ‘I decorated this room, myself.’ Then he asked me why I was not drinking my champagne and I said I did not like it; it tasted bitter. But he persuaded me to drink it and I did.

“A few moments after I had drank it there began a pounding and thumping in my ears and the room got all black.”

Mrs. Thaw was almost in tears at this statement.

“When I came to myself I was greatly frightened and I started to scream. Mr. White came and

tried to quiet me. As I sat up I saw mirrors all over. I began to scream again, and Mr. White asked me to keep quiet, saying that it was all over.

“When he threw the kimono over me he left the room. I screamed harder than ever. I don’t remember much of anything after that.

“He took me home and I sat up all night crying.”

Regard for the morals of the young prevents the publication of the awful details disclosed at this point in the evidence. The yellowest of yellow journals omitted the hideous details flashed over the wires, and with all the shocking evidence published, the public has no conception of awful facts revealed by this pitiful tragedy.

“What did he say afterward?”

“He made me swear that I would never tell my mother about it. He said there was no use in talking and the greatest thing in this world was not to get found out. He said the girls in the theaters were foolish to talk. He laughed afterward.

“He said it was all right—that there was ‘nothing so nice as young girls and nothing so loathsome as fat ones. You must never get fat.’”

The black heart of Stanford White was disclosed in all its hideousness at last! The final shred of respectability had been torn from his reputation. The almost fainting Evelyn had completed the human sacrifice. Her life story, tragic beyond human comprehension, had been told under oath—told to a jury that gasped at every sentence, shuddered at every disclosure. It was the coup d’etat of the defense! the staggering blow reserved to overwhelm Jerome and his allies. What a story it was that the poor little victim of a sybaritic brute told! What a tale of Nero’s time it seemed to be! Tiberius and Caligula planned dens and stage settings such as Evelyn Nesbit described in the haunts of Stanford White. Did Tiberius and Caligula ever plan darker, more foul conspiracies against helpless little girls than the plots of the great architect seemed to have been? And with the telling of the heart-rending story came new thoughts, new lights upon the shadowy life of the man who died before the pistol of Harry Thaw.

No one ever denied that Stanford White, no matter what he may have been, was a generous giver, a good Samaritan in the time of need. He supported Evelyn, her mother, and her brother, in royal fashion.

What was to be deduced from the largess of White, both to the Nesbits and to scores of others?

Was the licentious architect a Jekyll and a Hyde?

Or did the weight of remorse and gloomy shame bear down upon this strangest of men in such degree that he strove mightily to salve his conscience and his bitter memories?

Or was White “a bookkeeper with the Fates”—a man who tried ever to balance the accounts of good and bad, so that the final reckoning might find his ledgers balanced? There are many men who keep the lists of debits and of credits—who strive to make a deed of kindness balance every deed of crime. Was White such a man—bookkeeping with the Fates, and seeking by princely generosity to offset the debits of unscrupulous passion? She sat in the witness chair, a tiny, shrinking figure, and she spoke out the horrid details of the criminal outrage upon her; unhesitating and unbreaking. The kindliness of White, all with its ultimate hideous object masked beneath the roses; the mirrored room in the architect’s hidden lair; the drugged wine; the awakening—all these things the little Evelyn told with the close precision of a seared and branded memory. And when the story had been spun the shrewd and skillful Delmas smiled serene, well knowing that a probably fatal blow had been dealt the prosecution. The “learned Jerome,” as Delmas suavely called him, spent the night before planning and massing his artillery. He had a fearful day of defeat and sorrow.

CHAPTER IX.

Intrigue Like Those in Days of Nero.

Spectators shuddered at the diabolical ingenuity of White, millionaire, famous and feted, who, with noble aims ready for his mind, diverted his talent instead to hideous crimes.

The ordeal of the witness chair had made nervous wrecks of the frail woman and of her husband, for whose life she was battling. Young Thaw for the first time since the trial began had lost the spring in his step, and instead of walking briskly to his place at the table of his counsel he moved hesitatingly and looked constantly from left to right about the courtroom. The big crowd seemed to annoy him. The pallid face broke into a faint smile as the prisoner recognized his brother, Edward Thaw, who was the only member of the family in court.

“Call Mrs. Evelyn Nesbit Thaw to the stand,” requested Mr. Delmas of the clerk.

When she appeared and took her place in the big witness chair Mrs. Thaw was dressed precisely as on the previous day. She was extremely pale and her lips trembled visibly as she replied to the first simple question asked her by counsel.

“Please relate what you told Mr. Thaw besides what you stated before,” said Mr. Delmas, looking at Jerome, as if to say, “You cannot stop me now.”

“He asked me how I came to speak to Stanford White after my return from Europe,” said Mrs. Thaw. “I told him I was driving down Fifth avenue one day in a hansom cab with my maid and we passed Stanford White. I heard him exclaim: ‘Oh, look at Evelyn.’

“A few days later I was called to the telephone and it was Mr. White. He said: ‘My, but it is good to hear your voice again,’ and said he wanted to come and see me. I told him I could not see him. He said it was very important that I should see him at once. He said he had had much trouble with my family and must see me. I asked if my mother was ill.

“He said it was a matter of life and death—he could not tell me over the telephone. So he came to see me at the Hotel Savoy.

“When he came in he tried to kiss me, but I did not let him. He asked me what was the matter. I told him to sit down and asked him again if my mother was ill. He said, ‘No,’ and at once began to talk about Harry Thaw. He told me that different actresses had told him that I was in Europe with Harry Thaw.

“He said presently that Harry Thaw took me to Europe, and asked me why I went around with a man who took morphine. He said positively that Harry Thaw took morphine, that he was not even a gentleman, and I must have nothing to do with him.

“After that he came constantly to see me. He also sent people to me who told me stories about Mr. Thaw, the stories I told yesterday. I told Mr. Thaw afterward that the stories worried me so much I could not sleep nights. I got very nervous, for I knew Mr. Thaw was coming over and I did not want to see him. I told Mr. White I did not want to see Mr. Thaw.

“One day Mr. White telephoned me that he was going to send a carriage for me and I was to come to Broadway and Nineteenth street. I did so, and White met me and got into the carriage. He said he was taking me to see Abe Hummel, the greatest lawyer in New York, who would protect me from Harry Thaw. He said I was not to be afraid of Mr. Hummel; he was a little man with a big, bald head, warts on his face and was very ugly.

“When I got to Mr. Hummel’s office Mr. White went away. Mr. Hummel’s office walls were covered with photographs of actresses, with writing on them. He asked me how I came to go to Europe with Harry Thaw, and I told him that I didn’t, I went with my mother and Thaw followed us. He asked me about my quarrel with my mother in London. I said it was a continuous quarrel between us; we simply couldn’t get along. She wanted to come home to America and I said she could come, but I was going to stay there and return to the stage; but the doctor told me I couldn’t dance for a year. Hummel asked me all places where I went with Thaw.

“I told him all I could remember. He said I was a minor and that Thaw should have been more careful. He said he had a case in his office against Thaw, but the woman in the case was a very bad one and he did not think the case was much good.

“Then he said Thaw was a very bad man, and, above all things, I must be protected from him. Mr. White then said that the other man was to get Harry Thaw out of New York and keep him out.

“They asked me if I went to Europe of my own accord, and I said I certainly had. I said I remained in Europe after my mother left because I had quarreled with her and could not dance for a year, and I liked Mr. Thaw very much and could not do anything else.

“‘Nevertheless,’ Hummel said, ‘you are a minor and he should not have taken you away from your mother.’ I said he did not take me away.

“Mr. White said that strong methods must be resorted to to keep Thaw out of New York, and to protect myself I must help in every way I could.

“Mr. White said I must leave everything in Mr. Hummel’s hands. Then they sent for a stenographer, and the lawyer said I must not interrupt him in what he was about to say. I was very nervous and excited, and I think I began to cry. Then they began to dictate and put in a lot of stuff that I had been carried away by Harry Thaw against my will. I started to interrupt, but the lawyer put up his hands and stopped me.

“They put in that I had been taken away from my mother and a lot of stuff that was not true—that

I had been treated badly by Mr. Thaw. Then they sent the man out of the room.

“Several days later Mr. Hummel called me up and asked if I had any letters from Mr. Thaw.

“I said I did, but I could not see what that had to do with it. Mr. White also called up and said if I was not willing to help in every way they could not protect me from Mr. Thaw. He said I must do just what Mr. Hummel said. So I made the letters up in a bundle and took them down to Mr. Hummel’s office. He said he did not want to read them, and did not care what they contained. He asked, however, if they were love letters, and I said ‘yes.’

“He said he just wanted to hold them over Harry K. Thaw’s head. He sealed them up in a big envelope so I could see, he said, that he did not care anything about them.

“Then he asked me why I did not sue Harry Thaw for breach of promise. I said that was absurd, for if there had been any breach of promise it was on my part. He said that did not matter.

“Mr. Hummel said a breach of promise suit would be a fine advertisement for me. I told him I did not care for that kind of advertising. He said lots of actresses had done the same thing and he had won lots of cases for them. He told me an English duke had once been sued by an actress for breach of promise. He declared he could easily win a suit for me. I said I did not want to sue anybody.

“This made Mr. Hummel very mad and angry and he told me I was foolish.”

“What more did you tell Mr. Thaw?” suggested Mr. Delmas, to give the girl witness a breathing spell.

“Mr. Thaw asked me if I had signed anything in Mr. Hummel’s office and I said I had not. He said that was funny, for if they wanted to cause trouble I must have signed something. I said I had signed absolutely nothing in Mr. Hummel’s office.

“Mr. Thaw was very much agitated. He said Hummel was a blackmailer and he said, I think, that there was something bad in the air and he impressed me that he was going to see Mr. Longfellow, his lawyer.”

Mrs. Thaw testified to going to her own lawyer and relating her experiences with Hummel. Her lawyer, she said, was greatly incensed at what she told him of her experiences in Hummel’s office. Mrs. Thaw said:

“My lawyer, too, told me that Hummel was a shyster.” A laugh went around the room. Hummel was at this time under conviction in a divorce scandal. Mrs. Thaw continued:

“Mr. Thaw told me that I had no business to speak again with Stanford White. He accused me of having been imprudent with Mr. White since I came back from Europe, and I said that it was a lie. He said it would look to people as if I was a blackmailer by going to Hummel’s office.”

“Did you tell of another incident?”

“Yes, I told him of one day when White came to the hotel Navarre and he was terribly mad, and walked up and down the room with a camp chair in his hand. ‘My child,’ he said, ‘what did you tell Mr. Hummel about me?’ I said I had not said anything, and then Mr. White said I must have told Hummel, because Hummel had just squeezed $1,000 out of him and he was not going to send another $1,000.”

The witness, continuing, said that she did not know what she had signed when she signed the paper at the request of Mr. White in his office in Madison Square garden.

“I called Mr. White up on the telephone after I had talked to Mr. Thaw, and I demanded of Mr. White that he put the paper in the fire. He said he did not have it—but that it was in Mr. Hummel’s office. I said: ‘Very well,’ and told him I was going down to Mr. Hummel’s office immediately. He told me to not talk about the matter over the telephone, and I said I did not care who heard me. Then White said he would meet me on the corner and I met him.

“When I met him we went down to Mr. Hummel’s office. He showed me the paper and showed me my signature and asked if it was mine, and I said it was. Then they put the paper in a big jardiniere and burned it. Afterward I told Mr. Thaw all about it and also saw Mr. Longfellow and told him.

“How did Mr. Thaw treat you from that time until he proposed marriage?”

“He treated me very nicely; carried me up and down stairs when I was sick and brought me flowers and took me carriage riding.”

After her marriage to Mr. Thaw the witness said they took a trip through the west. While in Pittsburg, she said, she had lived at the home of her husband’s mother. She related how she had persistently refused to marry Thaw before she finally did so.

“What reason did you give him for not marrying him?”

“It was because of my reputation. I did not want to separate him from his family. I knew it would be a good thing for me to marry him, but it would not be for him. It was because I loved him that I would not marry. If I did not love him so much I might have been anxious to marry him.”

Mr. Delmas got the witness to relate how she met some of the Thaw family in Europe.

“There was something happened which led you to change your mind in regard to marrying Thaw?” asked Mr. Delmas.

“Yes,” answered the young woman.

“You were given to believe that his family would receive you as his wife?”

“Yes.”

“Did you meet Mrs. Thaw, his mother, in New York.”

“I did.”

“After your marriage did you visit New York from Pittsburg?”

“We did.”

“Did you tell your husband of the efforts of Stanford White to renew your friendship?”

“I did.”

“What was the first occurrence you told your husband about?”

“Once when I was driving on Fifth avenue, when I passed Mr. White and he called out to me, ‘Evelyn.’”

“Did you tell your husband?”

“I did, and he said it was not right for me to see him and made me promise that if I ever met White again I would tell him about it.”

“Did you tell him?”

“I did.”

“When did you see Mr. White again?”

“It was on Fifth avenue one day when I was riding to Dr. Delavan to have my throat treated. I was in a hansom and Mr. White was also riding in a hansom, too.

“When I got home I told Mr. Thaw that at about Thirty-fourth street I had passed Mr. White, both of us in hansoms. He did not attempt to speak to me, but stared hard at me. I looked away. When I got down to the doctor’s office I found Stanford White in his hansom coming there. I ran up the steps, but I was excited and nervous and I told the door porter that I would come some other time, so I ran back down the stairs, jumped into my hansom, looked neither to the right nor to the left, and told the driver to go back to the Lorraine as quickly as ever he could.”

“How did Mr. Thaw act when you told him of this?”

“Oh, he was always very excited whenever I told him of my meetings with White. He bit his nails and looked excited.”

“Did you ever tell Mr. Thaw how you came to be sent to school at Pompton, N. J., and if so, relate it to the jury, and also wherein the name of Jack Barrymore entered into the discussion, and tell what your relations to Barrymore were.”

“I met Mr. Barrymore when I was with the ‘Wild Rose’ company at the Knickerbocker theater. Mr. White gave a dinner to a whole lot of friends. I was asked to attend and I went there and met his friends at the party. Mr. Barrymore was there.”

Mrs. Thaw privately mentioned the names of the members of the party to Mr. Jerome. She said that when she told White of “Jack” Barrymore’s proposal he became very angry and said he would send her away to school to New Jersey. She continued to detail her relations with Barrymore, and her being sent to school.

“It all came about through a quarrel between Mr. White, my mother and myself over Mr. Barrymore, continued the witness. One afternoon in Madison Square garden Mr. Barrymore said to me, ‘Evelyn, will you marry me?’”

Mrs. Thaw pronounced the name with a long “e.”

“I answered him, and said, ‘I don’t know,’” she went on.

“White asked me if I would marry Barrymore and said, ‘If kids like you get married, what would you have to live on?’

“Every day after that when I would meet my mother she would ask me if I intended ‘to marry that little pup Barrymore,’ saying Mr. White was afraid I would.

“Mr. White then came to see me and said I would be very foolish to marry Mr. Barrymore: we would have nothing to live on, would probably quarrel and get a divorce. He also said Mr. Barrymore was a little bit crazy, that his father was in an asylum, and he thought the whole family was touched. He was certain Mr. Barrymore would be crazy in a few years, and for that reason said I ought not to marry him.

“Mr. Barrymore asked me a second time if I would marry him, and again I said, ‘I don’t know,’ and laughed. The upshot of the whole matter was that Mr. White came and said I ought to be sent to school, and I was.”

Mr. Delmas had asked Mrs. Thaw if Thaw had told her the fate of other girls ‘at the hands of this man White?’

Mr. Jerome objected to further “defamation being thrown on the dead, who have no chance to answer. The state is not permitted to controvert the truth of a single statement in this testimony,” he added. “Stanford White is dead, and I object to this question, which is along a path which we can not follow.”

Mr. Delmas said he had no desire to besmirch the name of the dead. He was introducing letters by Thaw to corroborate the question.

Justice Fitzgerald said he thought further competent evidence as to Thaw’s insanity should be introduced before further testimony along the day’s line was taken.

“We are ready to submit the proof,” said Mr. Delmas.

The line of examination was changed and Mrs. Thaw was asked to identify more letters.

One of the papers Mrs. Thaw was asked to identify was Harry Thaw’s will.

The old saying, “Nothing but good of the dead,” must have recurred again and again to Mr. Jerome as the slender Evelyn told her story. It is a good old saying, but there is another: “The dead are safe—let us take care of the living.” Jerome strove to protect the cold and unresponsive dead. Delmas tried to save the living, and the fragile little model was the life-line in his hands. Evelyn Nesbit’s story, as she told it, showed new and curious lights and shadows in the character of White. One thing was