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.
EVELYN TELLS HOW WHITE PLOTTED WITH FALSEHOODS AND MONEY AS HIS INSTRUMENTS, TO BLAST HER LIFE BY FORCING HER TO LEAVE HARRY THAW—SOUGHT TO WRECK HER LOVE—HUSBAND GHASTLY IN COURT—LAWYER DICTATED “AFFIDAVIT” ACCUSING THAW, WHILE BEAUTIFUL ACTRESS WEPT—BREACH OF PROMISE SUIT CONSPIRACY—BLACKMAIL HINTED—WHITE FLEECED—ARCHITECT EVEN TRIED TO STEAL EVELYN FROM HUSBAND—JACK BARRYMORE, ACTOR, BROUGHT INTO CASE—WANTED TO MARRY WITNESS—PROPOSED TWICE—RUIN OF OTHER GIRLS BROUGHT UP—EVERYBODY AFFECTED BY TRAGIC STORY.
“I refused to marry Harry at first because I loved him—it was because of my reputation. I loved him more than all else—more than my own life. I did not want to ruin his career, to estrange him from his family and blast his future,”—Evelyn Nesbit Thaw told the Jury.
Intrigue—a story of intrigue by Stanford White to steal Evelyn Nesbit’s love away from Harry Thaw by means of false, shocking stories of cruelty to other women was bared by the fragile Evelyn the second day she was on the stand.
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.