“‘He got excited,’ she said, ‘and bit his nails.’ In May, 1906, not long before the hour which was to be Stanford White’s last on earth, this is the story that she related to her husband. She told him that Miss Mae MacKenzie had told her that Stanford White had been to the hospital to see her. That she, Mae MacKenzie, had said to him, ‘Isn’t it nice the way Harry and Evelyn really do care for each other?’ and that she said that she had found it out, and that Stanford White said: ‘Pooh! I don’t believe it.’ And Miss MacKenzie had replied: ‘Oh, yes; it is true. I know it myself, and I think it is so nice,’ and Stanford White had remarked: ‘Well, it will not last long. I will get her back.’ All this she related to her husband.
“Then, when she told her husband what Mae MacKenzie had told her, he became wild, and began to gnaw his finger nails. Did he not have cause to get wild, to lose that reason which in a civilized community one is supposed to stifle?
“‘I stole her once from her mother, I will steal her now from her husband,’ Stanford White said. But between him and the consummation of that act there remained the strong arm of that young man to protect her from his snares.
“You remember how at Daly’s Theater Harry Thaw and his wife saw Stanford White in a box opposite, and how when he saw him, he became enraged.
“When he looked into those eyes, into which so many a young girl had looked before she went down to her ruin, his eyes grew wild and he just sat there and stared and stared at the object of his thoughts. She says, describing another meeting: ‘At another time, when Harry and I were passing Herald Square in a hansom, we saw Stanford White on the street. Mr. Thaw grew white and his eyes glared. He talked so fast that I could not understand him. He carried on in this way for about fifteen minutes. I believe Harry had a fit then and there. He shook violently. He moaned and clenched and unclenched his hands, and that was the way he acted when he saw Stanford White.
“‘One Sunday,’ said Evelyn, ‘he was sitting in a chair in my room and suddenly he began to sob and cry without any warning whatever, apparently gazing upon vacancy.’
“His mind was always on this man. He cried until at last his own wife could not but believe this subject—the thought of Stanford White—had preyed so on his mind that he had become insane.
“The man who had brooded over those pictures of horror for three years—this man would have been more than human if he could have preserved a calmness of reason. Now, gentlemen, place yourselves in the position of this defendant.
“Recall the time, those of you who have wives, recall the time that you led the one you loved to the altar, and if possible do this defendant justice. You remember when the little lady tells you that her husband on this subject had lost his mind—do you remember in this connection the spontaneous exclamation of the friend who, on hearing the shots fired on the Madison Square Roof-garden, made the exclamation: ‘This is the act of an insane man.’
“Gentlemen, nothing now remains for me to do but to call your attention to the events of the night of the tragedy. With a view simply of elucidating the great point, fix your attention on this point—that is, the condition of mind of the defendant on that fateful night—you recall that Mr. Thaw, his wife and two friends were seated at dinner at the Cafe Martin, a place of public entertainment in this city. The time was summer, the evening doubtless was sultry. Tables had been set upon the balcony, the veranda on the outside for the accommodation of those who desired a cooler spot.