evident: White, once possessor of a victim, wished to cling to that victim through the years. Unlike nearly all other men of similar stamp, he did not cast aside his playthings when wearied of them. Possibly he had been like other men in this regard—possibly he had turned from many another victim in the past. But the frail and pitiful little Evelyn seemed to have enthralled his fancies, conquered his vagrant passions. All his thoughts were for her, and for her his future dreams. He lavished his bounty on her, and he strove to keep her from all other men. The story of Evelyn’s affair with Jack Barrymore was a page in real life that made the courtroom crowd strain its eager ears. Barrymore, young, handsome, and romantic, had appealed to the girlish mind and eye. The burly White, with his 50 years, found himself fading into the background. He seized an opportunity to pose as “the friend of the family” by discrediting Barrymore and sending the little girl to school. It was an index to White’s soul—but it showed that White, at least, had no idea of parting from or wearying of his victim.

What had Delmas done?

He made the jurors regard Stanford White as a fiend whose slaying was a noble deed.

He made the jurors thrill with sympathy for the fragile, pale-faced little Evelyn.

He showed cause enough ten times over for the dethronement of reason in the brain of Harry Thaw.

What more could any lawyer do?

CHAPTER X.

White on Verge of Arrest When Shot.

“I know that much of what Mrs. Harry Thaw has stated on the witness stand is true. I know that Stanford White’s den in the tower of Madison Square garden was arranged as she described it, and that it was the scene of revelries. I know of at least one specific instance. And what I know I learned after I had been given the first clews by Harry Kendall Thaw himself.

“My first knowledge of this case dates from the summer of 1905—about a year before the killing, I should say. One afternoon a tall, well-dressed, well-bred young man came to me in my office in the Temple Bar building. He seemed to be laboring under excitement, and it was evident that he was desperately in earnest. He opened the conversation by asking me if I were interested in the suppression of vice. Then he wanted to know if my society gave special attention to the arrest and punishment of men who preyed upon young girls. I told him that we did. He jumped up abruptly, said he would see me again, and left without telling me his name. At the door he stopped long enough to say he would see me again.

“A few days later he came back, still laboring under strong emotion. He then introduced himself. As nearly as I can recall he said:

“‘I am Harry Kendall Thaw of Pittsburg. I want to tell you of a man who has betrayed more young girls than any other man in New York. He is particularly given to pursuing the young girls of the stage. It is a debt which society owes to itself to halt him now, before he brings shame and sorrow to any more victims.’

“That in effect was his statement,” continued Mr. Comstock, “although of course I asked him a great deal more of the matter. He left after securing my promise to investigate. He agreed to pay the cost of looking into the case. He at once mailed me a check of sufficient size to defray the necessary expenses, and subsequently wrote me several times upon the subject of White, asking each time what progress we were making.

“Our investigation confirmed to a great degree what Thaw had told me. Our detectives were astounded at what they discovered. We worked hard and I learned a great deal, but of all cases these are the hardest to prove under the rules of evidence, and before risking an arrest I determined to catch White.

“I learned that his rooms in the tower were as Mrs. Evelyn Thaw had described them in the trial. Two of our detectives endeavored to hire rooms in the same tower in order to watch his goings and comings. The deal was almost completed when one of the detectives made a bungle. Something which he said or did gave the alarm to the janitor, and, although we were on the waiting list for a long time, and although several times apartments in the tower were vacant, we were never able to secure a suite or a single room.

“We were still vainly trying to arrange a trap for White from which there would be no escape when he dismantled his room in the tower.

“I learned positively of one case of White’s conduct to a girl only 15 years old almost identically as Mrs. Evelyn Thaw describes her own case, but the girl was in the chorus of a road company, and we could not reach her and make a witness of her. We got evidence of other things—things that convince me that what Harry Thaw’s wife now swears is true. I believe in her story and base that belief upon what I know of the man.

“The last time I saw Harry Thaw was only two or three weeks before he shot White. He appeared to be in a desperate state—like a man who is well-nigh frantic. He said to me wildly: ‘You must keep on, you must stop this man, he must be stopped now—at once.”

The defense, on the same day that it secured the Rev. Mr. Comstock’s statement, made another sensational discovery. It obtained proof that the day after the shooting of White, the police searched the studio of White and discovered evidence that showed that Evelyn Nesbit was not the only young girl who had been lured into the Madison Square Garden mirrored-room within a few months.

In the room “with mirrors to left and to right, in the ceiling and on the floor,” in securely locked drawers built into the walls, the police found this evidence. That such a den of vice could have existed in the very heart of the great metropolis seems well nigh incredible. That such practices could have been known by men of social standing, and without protest, is past belief.

Speaking after this discovery, Attorney Delmas was confident of the acquittal of Thaw.

“Before we put Evelyn on the stand,” he said, “I heard her story but once. There was no rehearsal no attempt at dramatic play.”

“The story as she told it in court was not half as dramatic as it was when she told it to me during our preparation of the case.

“Only once in my life have I been so touched with emotion as I was when Evelyn Nesbit first told me her story. That was at the burial of my father.

“As I sat there as a lawyer listening to the girl narrating the story of what she had suffered at the hands of Stanford White, the tears welled into my eyes and I fairly sobbed.

“She told me then that when she awoke and found Stanford White was alone with her in that mirrored bedroom he seemed to her like a big gorilla.

“His hair was disheveled, and the look in his face was like an animal. ‘I screamed with terror,’ she told me. She added many details, which, if she had told the jury, there would have been no need on her part to produce further evidence—as we had not rehearsed our part, I depended simply on her memory as to facts. The presence of the crowded courtroom disconcerted her to the extent that she omitted some of the most revolting features of that fatal night.”

CHAPTER XI.

Harry Thaw’s Startling Will Disclosed Fear of Assassination.

Mrs. Thaw was accompanied in court by her chorus girl friend and chum, May McKenzie, and by another close friend, Mrs. J. J. Caine of Boston. Mrs. Thaw heard Dr. Britton D. Evans, a noted alienist, testify

that he had made three separate examinations of her husband shortly after the murder, and on each occasion found him insane. He swore:

“Thaw exhibited delusions of a personal character, an exaggerated ego, and, along with them delusions of a persecutory character. He thought himself of exaggerated importance and believed himself persecuted by a number of persons.”

By an “exaggerated ego,” Dr. Evans said he meant “a disproportionate idea of importance of self, a belief that one is clothed with powers, capacity and ability far above normal or above those actually possessed.”

These symptoms, he said, were characteristic of several mental diseases.

One of the mental diseases indicated by Thaw’s actions, Dr. Evans declared, is known as adolescent insanity. It is characteristic of the development period of life—from 10 to 40 years. The person thus afflicted is known as having a psychopathic taint, a predisposition to mental unsoundness, the result of heredity.

The death of the wife of Joseph B. Bolton, who succumbed to pneumonia, delayed the trial for three days after Dr. Wagner’s testimony, and for a time, grave fears that a new trial would be necessary, were expressed. The day after the funeral, however, the juror resumed his duties. Up to this point the defense had expended $1,000,000 on the trial, and the state had paid out $250,000. If Juror Bolton had been incapacitated by his wife’s death, all this expense would have been useless.

When the failure of the trial was feared, Mrs. Thaw sought to cheer her husband. Perhaps her woman’s wit had warned her that she must look her prettiest, for on her visit to the Tombs prison she wore for the first time a new and modish little brown frock, its coat set off with jaunty silk fixings. She was radiant and smiling as she jumped out of her cab and ran up the steps to the iron gates of the Tombs.

As she waited to be taken to her husband, a jail guard showed her a message which had come in the mail for her husband. It was a postal card, a picture of a bunch of violets, bearing in a childish hand this inscription:

“Dear Mr. Thaw: I am a little Baltimore girl. I send you this as a token of my sympathy. Yours,

“Lulu Bell.”

The wife’s face dimpled with pleasure. “Isn’t that sweet?” she said. “I know Harry will appreciate it.”

Dr. Charles Wagner, the alienist, who took the stand when the trial was resumed, declared there could be not the slightest doubt that Thaw was insane at the time of the shooting, and told the jury that Harry had declared a “sudden impulse” made him slay White.

“Mr. Thaw said in his conversation with me,” asserted the witness, “that he had no idea of killing White up to the very time he shot him. Thaw said his sole purpose had been to get evidence against White to send him to the penitentiary for his offenses against young women.

“White, declared Thaw, made a practice of his sins against girls, to pick out young women who had a disposition toward morality rather than toward girls with an inclination toward immorality.

“Thaw told me,” said Dr. Wagner, “that White did not hesitate to use drugs or employ physical force to accomplish his evil purposes.”

Mr. Jerome protested at “thus attacking the name of the dead,” but in vain, and the doctor resumed:

“Thaw constantly referred to White as ‘this man, this creature, the beast, the blackguard,’ and said the man had sought to pollute every pure minded woman who came within the sphere of his observation.

“‘I tried to save them,’ Mr. Thaw said to us, and added, ‘I did all in my power, I never wanted to shoot the creature. I never wanted to kill him. I knew he was a foul creature, destroying all the mothers and daughters in America, but I wanted through legal means to bring him to trial. I wanted to get him into court so he would be brought to justice.’

“I then asked him why under such circumstances he had shot Mr. White.

“‘Providence took charge of it,’ he replied. ‘This was an act of Providence. For my part I would rather have had him suffer in court the humiliation the revelation of his acts would have caused.’”

“Did he tell you what he had done, if anything, to bring White into court?” asked Mr. Delmas.

“He said he had gone to see Anthony Comstock, District Attorney Jerome and a private detective agency. He said Mr. Jerome had told him he had better let the matter drop; that there was nothing to it. The detectives told him they would take the matter up, but they had not submitted a proper report. As to Mr. Comstock, he said, he discovered that Delancey Nicoll, an attorney, was acting as legal adviser both to White and to Comstock. He regarded this as another link in the conspiracy against him.

“I asked him why he carried a pistol, and he said that Roger O’Mara, a Pittsburg detective, had advised him to do so after he had told O’Mara that on several occasions thugs had jostled him in an attempt to get him into a street brawl. He said these thugs were the hired agents of Stanford White, who did not want to take the responsibility and danger of making a personal attack. He said White had hired the Monk Eastman gang to get him into a quarrel and beat or kick him to death.”

After these astounding statements, to which the jury listened eagerly, the bailiff cried:

“Mrs. Evelyn Nesbit Thaw to the Stand!”

A thrill ran round the court.

Mrs. Thaw looked pale and serious as she took her place on the stand. She appeared in the same simple girlish costume that she had worn every day since the trial began. She smiled slightly as she caught her husband’s eye. Thaw returned the smile, and then turned to Attorney O’Reilly, with whom he talked for a minute excitedly. Then he kept his eyes fixed on his wife’s face.

After Mrs. Thaw had sat in the witness chair for nearly five minutes, Mr. Delmas began his examination.

“You have already testified, Mrs. Thaw, that you are familiar with the handwriting of Stanford White,” said the attorney. “I now hand you a paper and ask if from beginning to end it is in the handwriting of Mr. White?”

Mrs. Thaw gazed at the paper, evidently a letter, and said:

“It is his handwriting.”

Letter by letter, Mrs. Thaw identified forty-two missives written by the architect.

As the examination of the letters was concluded Mr. Delmas turned to the witness.

“How long have you known May McKenzie?”

“Since 1901.”

“How long has Mr. Thaw known her?”

“Since 1904.”

“Did you in May, 1906, relate to Mr. Thaw a conversation you had with May McKenzie especially with reference to what she said to you regarding Stanford White?”

“May McKenzie told me,” said Mrs. Thaw, “Stanford White had been to see her and that she had told him that Harry and I were getting along finely together. She said she thought it was so nice the way we loved each other.

“She said Stanford White had remarked: ‘Pooh, it won’t last. I will get her back.’”

“Did Mr. Thaw say anything when you told him this?”

“He said he had already heard it from Miss McKenzie.”

“What was his condition when you told him?”

“The way he always was when on the subject of Stanford White.”

“How was that?”

“Very excited and nervous.”

“You had a second operation in 1905, did you not?”

“Yes.”

“Who made the arrangements for it and paid the cost?”

“Harry K. Thaw.”

“How much was the bill?”

“In all about $3,000. The operation itself was $1,000.”

The nature of the operation was not gone into.

“Did Mr. Thaw have any conversation with the attending physician at that time regarding your previous relations with White?”

“No, sir; not in my presence.”

“Did Mr. Thaw at the time of your marriage and subsequent thereto talk very much about the incident in your life connected with White?”

“Yes. He always talked about it. He would waken me often at night, sobbing. And then he would constantly ask me questions about the details of this terrible thing.”

“Did you visit May McKenzie at her apartments in 1904?”

“Yes; she was ill and sent me a letter to come to see her.”

“While you were there did Stanford White come in?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell Mr. Thaw of anything that then occurred?”

“Yes. Stanford White spoke to me several times and I always answered ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ He then came over and started to straighten a bow on my hair. My hair was short, having been cut off at the time of my first operation. Then Stanford White tried to put his arms around me, and wanted me to sit beside him on the bed. I told him to let me alone.”

Mrs. Thaw said that Harry Thaw always attributed her ill health, the necessity of the second operation, etc., to White. She also testified that Thaw had told her he was going to take up White’s affairs with Anthony Comstock.

“I told him it would do no good,” she added: “that White had many influential friends and that he could stop it. I told him that lots of people would not believe the things about White on account of his personality.”

Harry had begun to weep when his wife told of the operations, and continued to sob bitterly.

“Did you and Mr. Thaw discuss the fate of other young women at the hands of Stanford White and did you tell him certain names?”

Mr. Jerome objected.

Mr. Delmas put another question:

“Did you and Mr. Thaw discuss the fate of the ‘pie girl?’”

“Yes, sir. It was in Paris in 1903. He asked me what other girls I knew of who had suffered at the hands of White. I told him I had heard of the ‘pie girl,’ whose name was known to both of us. A girl at the theater had told me about it and that night when White came to my dressing-room I asked him about it. He asked me where I had heard the story. I told him a girl had told me. Then he told me all about it.

“There was a stag dinner, he said, and the girl was put in a big pie with a lot of birds. She was very young—about 15 years, I think he said. He also told me that the girl had a beautiful figure and wore only a gauze dress. He helped put her in the pie and fix it, and said it was the best stunt he ever saw at a dinner. When the girl jumped out of the pie the birds flew all about the room.

“‘But I came near getting into trouble about it,’ he said. ‘We put gold pieces in the girl’s shoes and in her dress and a lot of people heard of it. All the newspapers got hold of it. I stopped it at all the newspapers but one, but I could not stop it there. I got a friend to go see them, though, and we finally got them to stop it, too. We kept it out of the papers, but it was close.’”

“I told Mr. White I had heard he ruined the girl that night, but he only laughed.”

The names of other girls ruined by White were whispered by Mrs. Thaw to Jerome, but not made public.

“When did Mr. Thaw next talk to you about such cases?” asked Delmas.

“The next time was in Pittsburg, when we were married. He told me that the girl was dead. He said he had investigated the story and that it was true; that afterward the girl married, but her husband heard the story of her connection with Mr. White and that he cast her off and she died in great poverty and disgrace.”

“Did you and Mr. Thaw often speak of these girls?”

“Yes, there was a constant conversation. I could not possibly tell you every place and every time we discussed it. He told me something ought to be done about the girls. I told him I could not do anything. He then said I could help him. I tried to get his mind on other things and then he would say I was trying to get out of it. He said White ought to be in the penitentiary; that he got worse and worse all the time and something had to be done.”

This closed the direct examination, and Mr. Delmas then read a letter from Harry Thaw to Anthony Comstock, the foe of vice in New York. In it Thaw described the studio in the Madison Square tower, and said it was filled with obscene pictures, and should be raided. He also described the studio at 22 West Twenty-fourth street, which he said was “consecrated to debauchery” and was used by “a gang of rich criminals.” He described the studio and said in it there were many indecent pictures.

In this building, the letter said, were the famous red velvet swing and the mirrored bedroom. He inclosed a sketch of the arrangements of the rooms. “Workmen on the outside of the building,” says the letter, “have frequently heard the screams of young girls from this building.”

The letter continued that the place was run by “rich criminals,” but was frequently visited by young men who did not know its character. The letter said that the place had been partly dismantled three years ago.

The letter called attention to still another house, saying:

“You may also abolish another place at 122 East Twenty-second street—a house used secretly by three or four of the same scoundrels.

Mr. Delmas then asked permission to recall Mrs. Thaw for one more question—a startling one. Mrs. Thaw blushed violently and said in reply that White was a monster given to such practices that they would not bear repetition.

Evelyn Thaw, when first she told her story of alleged wrongs at the hand of the dead architect, did not falter in details as to the approximate time and circumstances.

“Counsel for the defense,” said the attorney, in speaking of the progress, “are greatly pleased with Mrs. Thaw and her testimony. What pleases us most is that she followed the instructions given her, which were that she should tell the truth, no matter what question was asked her. We told her she was not to consider the effect upon herself or the defendant, but to tell the truth bluntly and without consideration of the consequences.”

CHAPTER XII.

The Hidden Witness to the Proposal.

“Harry Thaw entered the room excitedly and at once told Mrs. Holman that he wanted to marry Evelyn. He told the mother of his desire to send the girl to Europe and said if she would marry him he would settle enough on the mother and her son, Howard Nesbit, to keep them in comfort during their entire lives. (Later testimony indicated this amount was $200,000.)

Evelyn’s mother said she would try to fix it so the seventeen-year-old girl would accept him. Mr. Thaw did not stay long, and when he left, Evelyn’s mother said, “Now you see his intentions are honorable.”

Thaw had never before known his conversation was overheard by an eavesdropper who would stand him in such good stead.

After Mrs. Caine left the stand Mrs. Evelyn Thaw was recalled for cross examination. For hours she sat before the merciless Jerome under a scathing cross fire of questions. Traps were laid and sprung, queries were hurled in volleys to carry her off her feet and overwhelm her in a tangle of contradictions, but all in vain; the mere slip of a girl met the skilled prosecutor with a calm and effective resistance.

Jerome’s first step was to try to prove that Evelyn had posed in the nude. He first showed her a photograph of herself taken in 1904. It showed Evelyn in a kimono—the famous one given her by Stanford White. There was nothing offensive in the pose as disclosed by a view of the picture.

Mr. Jerome by his next few questions indicated that he did not intend to spare the feelings of the young woman in any way. He interrogated her sharply as to the details of her dress when she was posing for artists in Philadelphia and New York, seeking to learn whether she posed in “the altogether” or partially draped. The prosecutor persisted in certain questions even after Mr. Delmas had objected, and insisted on having definite answers, though Mrs. Thaw usually said she could not exactly remember.

“Was there any exposure of the person or did you wear the so-called artistic draperies?”

“I would not say that,” replied the witness. “I posed in a Greek dress and a Turkish costume.”

Jerome questioned her especially as to her posing in New York, asking whether she had ever been photographed or painted with her person exposed. She answered positively that she had never posed in such a condition.

“You are certain you never posed for a painting or photograph in such a manner?” asked Jerome.

“I never did—I always posed with clothes on.” She moved her hands from her throat to her waist and said: “Do you mean without anything on here? I have posed in low-neck, but never, never like that.”

Then Mrs. Thaw told how she won her New York reputation as a model. She sent a picture of herself, under the name of Florence Evelyn to a New York magazine and soon was besieged by artists. Her mother aided her in her search for work.

“Is it not true,” went on Mr. Jerome, reading from a paper, “that in the spring of 1901, so far as your relations with your mother were concerned, that you were getting unruly, that your mother still stuck by you, that a married man — —”

At this point Mr. Delmas interposed an objection to Mr. Jerome reading from what he termed a statement by Evelyn Thaw’s mother.

“If the district attorney wants the mother’s testimony in he should produce her on the stand,” he said.

“I’d like to, but you know that it is impossible. You know where she is,” said Mr. Jerome.

The question regarding Evelyn becoming unruly was allowed to stand.

“No,” she answered decidedly.

“Is it not true that that married man was James A. Garland, and that he was getting a divorce, and that you and your mother frequently quarreled about him?”

“No, indeed.” Mrs. Thaw drew herself up indignantly and stamped her foot.

“Is it not true that you went alone with him on the yacht?”

“Mamma and I, yes.”

“Were you made a corespondent in Mr. Garland’s divorce suit?”

Mr. Delmas objected. The record, he said, was the best evidence.

The question of photographs was resumed. Jerome asked:

“During this time did you ever pose for an artist in the nude?”

“Never.”

“Ever have any casts made in the nude?”

“No.”

“Did you not in the spring of 1901 have such a cast made?”

“No.”

“Do you know Mr. Wells, sculptor?”

“No.”

“Ever heard of him?”

“Never.”

“How long did you know Mr. Garland?”

“Not long.”

“When did your acquaintance with him cease?”

“When I met Stanford White.”

“Isn’t it true that Mr. Garland became very annoying when you lived at a certain apartment house?”

“No.”

“Your recollection is clear that you posed in draperies the day before the mirrored-room incident?”

“Yes.”

“Was there any exposure of the person?”

“The photographs were low-necked.”

The ivory cheeks of the fair witness suddenly flamed with color and a look of mingled fear and

anger crept into her big limpid eyes. She was about to break down when the hearing for the day was ended. It was a spell of sorrow to her husband and terror to the woman.

Another day of torture was in store and it came with the morrow. Jerome had prepared to make the ordeal terrific and under his pitiless lash Evelyn fell like a stricken doe. Jerome read his questions from notes carefully prepared, realizing it was useless to attempt to ensnare the witness any other way. Although he brought tears to her eyes, and caused her to wince again and again, she stuck to her story bravely.

“Did you continue to believe all women were what Stanford White told you until you talked with Thaw in Paris in 1903?” he thundered.

“Yes, sir,” replied Mrs. Thaw meekly.

Then Jerome proved that Mrs. Thaw had visited a place in Paris called the Dead Rat in company with Harry Thaw.

“Before the time you left Paris, had you any appreciation that such things as you have described were considered as improper and positively wrong?”

“Not until my talk with Mr. Thaw.”

“Before that you didn’t believe it wrong; you did not think it improper?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Very wrong?”

“Not particularly. I knew people said it was wrong.”

“Did you think it very indelicate and vulgar?”

“That is all.”

“That it was only bad taste?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t think it was wrong?”

“I didn’t fully realize it until I went to Paris.”

“But you thought it was wrong?”

“Yes.”

“Did you belong to any religious organization?”

“No.”

“You went to church and Sunday school in Pittsburg?”

“Not in Pittsburg.”

“In Paris it was impressed on you that White had done you a terrible wrong?”

“In a way.”

“Before you left Paris you had begun to look on such relations as very wrong?”

“Yes.”

“Had you come to a full understanding of the infamous character of White’s act?”

“Yes—but not so much as I have now.”

“Yet it was this that induced your renunciation of Thaw’s great love?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Thaw, as tears welled to her eyes.

“Did you refuse Thaw solely because of the occurrence with White?” asked Mr. Jerome of the witness.

“Because I had been found out.”

“Who told you you had been caught?”

“Friends of Stanford White.”

“So it was not because of the occurrence but because you had been found out?”

“It was both together. I had an instinct about it. When Mr. Thaw proposed it was the first proposal I ever had and it all struck me very seriously. It all came together.”

“You felt the most heinous wrong had been done?”

“I didn’t know anything about it at the time. All I remember is what I felt like when I woke up. I remember that distinctly. I didn’t understand what had taken place.”

“It outraged every maidenly instinct in you, didn’t it?”

“It did, and that is why I quarreled with Stanford White.”

“You were very bitter against White when you told Thaw, weren’t you.”

“Not then.”

“When you felt you were giving up Thaw’s love you didn’t feel bitter against White?”

“Not intensely. Not until Mr. Thaw made me realize it.”

“Did you continue to have a feeling of enmity against White?” continued Jerome.

“I wouldn’t say enmity—it was hostility against him for this one thing and subsequent things.”

“What subsequent things?”

“The prosecutor caught up Mrs. Thaw’s own words?”

“Things with Stanford White,” replied Mrs. Thaw.

“Were they improper and indecent?”

“I don’t know what you would call them.”

Mrs. Thaw then testified that while she was in London, before her marriage, her mother compelled her to write a friendly letter to White.

“While abroad did you tell your mother of your experience with White?”

“No.”

“How did you know Stanford White’s friends knew of your relations with Stanford White?”

“One of them saw me with him at the East Twenty-second street studio.”

“Was there any impropriety there?”

“Yes.”

“So you continued to maintain relations with Stanford White?”

“Yes, for a time.”

Thaw buried his face in his hands. Tears were in Mrs. Thaw’s eyes and she broke into sobs.

Mr. Jerome demanded the name of the man who had seen her at the studio. He asked the witness to whisper it.

Mr. Delmas wanted it publicly announced. A wordy conflict ensued, in which Mr. Jerome threatened to have the courtroom cleared. Justice Fitzgerald finally settled the matter, saying the name might be given to counsel, the court, and the jury.

“Did you tell Harry Thaw about these subsequent relations with Stanford White?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t think to tell us on your direct examination?”

“No.”

“Can you fix dates as to these subsequent events?”

“No.”

“How did you know this man knew of your relations with White?”

“He saw me one day with Mr. White in one of his studios.”

“Were you and Mr. White alone?”

“Yes.”

“And this was about a month after the incident with drugs?”

“Yes.”

“How long did you continue to visit Mr. White?”

“Not after January, 1902.”

“How many visits did you make?”

“I do not remember.”

“Were they frequent?”

“No.”

“Ten times?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Where did these visits take place?”

“At the Twenty-second and Twenty-fourth street studios and in the Tower.”

“And on these occasions were you two alone?”

“Yes.”

“Did you partake of refreshments there?”

“Yes.”

“Were you drugged again?”

“No.”

“Did you have too much wine?”

“Yes.”

“What time of the day did these incidents occur?”

“Usually after the theater,” replied Mrs. Thaw, wiping the tears from her eyes.

As to the nature of the operation which was performed upon her while she was at school in New Jersey the witness said she knew only what the nurses and doctors told her, that it was for appendicitis.

“Why did you not tell your mother all about your visits?”

“I would rather have died than to tell her,” almost shrieked the girl.

During this period the prosecution established the following facts adverse to her:

That this beautiful girl, in the critical character-forming time of her life, was practically without religious instruction or training.

That she was an associate of various men of evil reputation and mingled with the gayest set of the intemperate circles of Bohemia.

That she pursued a calling most dangerous to innocence and purity for any girl.

That she lived off the bounty of the man who she alleges committed a shocking crime against her.

That she held astounding and shameful ideas of morality.

This was Mrs. Thaw’s worst day on the stand, when her tears flowed almost constantly. When she was forced to tell of her experiences in White’s infamous studio, she almost fainted. With head buried in his hands, Thaw wept aloud. It was a pitiful scene. The husband was so far overcome that he could not take his customary notes on the trial.

Evelyn Thaw was delirious that night and fell in May McKenzie’s arms at her hotel.

Is it a wonder that Evelyn Thaw wished to flee from further notoriety after Thaw shot Stanford White, according to a member of the Thaw household? She is said to have made hasty preparations to sail for Europe. When the Thaw lawyers learned of this, a council was called immediately, and Evelyn was induced to stay, as rumor had it, by liberal concessions of the Thaws.

CHAPTER XIII.

Lived on Bounty of Stanford White.