“You have heard what took place in Paris—mother, daughter and Thaw were living together. Thaw asked her there to be his wife and she refused, and when he asked her why she said:
“‘Because.’ And he asked. ‘Is it Stanford White?’ and she said, ‘Yes.’ And then we are told she gave him the entire story.
“She had nothing ahead of her. There was a man she saw she loved. He offered her his wealth in return for that love. She laid it aside—all the comforts of life. Wasn’t that a sublime resignation?
“He offered her a haven of rest—rest for the wanderer. And yet so great was that love for him that she would not accept him. Those were noble words for this man to say. This girl’s renunciation was truly sublime—if true. She might not have known how Stanford White, like the brute negro of the South, would look upon his victim with passion, but she did not know that it was wrong.
“I don’t think Hummel is an upright man, and he is in the position he is in just because I put him there. He will go to jail and he will stay there just as long as I can keep him there. He has lived as a blackguarding blackmailer for twenty years and anything coming from his hands must be viewed by you justly with suspicion.
“But Abraham Snydecker swore that he took that affidavit to Evelyn Nesbit there in the Madison Square tower and that she read it and signed it. Let us see what she herself says about that affidavit. The itinerary set down in the affidavit corresponds exactly with her description of it. Were all these things put in there by Hummel? Strange touches for this old blackmailing, blackguarding scoundrel to have put into that affidavit—such little touches as reference to a watch and to a hypodermic needle used for morphine, which she says she found in Thaw’s trunk.
“I will concede that this story may have been dressed up by the lawyer. Can we think of the suggestions in her own testimony of the Ethel Thomas suit? Can we think of the rumors of Dillingham’s story? Can we fail to remark upon that passage in his letter in which he says, ‘He will never hurt you,’ referring to himself?
“Snydecker says that affidavit was taken to the Twenty-seventh street studio and her signature appears exactly opposite the date.
“Strange that after her return from Europe—from Thaw—she should immediately have gone to him, to White.
“A knight of old, redressing the wrongs of injured maidens, would not have gone to Rector’s at 2 o’clock in the morning, would not have gone to cakewalks and cafes, to the Dead Rat in Paris and resorts in other places, to remain there all night and go home when the market wakes.