Page:The Great Harry Thaw Case.djvu/274

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the spirit of White, added: "I am not on trial. I have no one here to speak for me.")

Jerome's eyes filled with more tears as he went on:

"'Can you not say one word for me? Only one word for me,' the spirit seemed to say."

The tears started down Jerome's face. He faced the jury, holding aloft the photograph taken by Eichmeyer—the one on the bear rug. Then he cried with evident feeling:

"Can't you say for me something? On the stand she said, 'I know no one who was nicer or kinder than Stanford White, except for this one awful thing. He was exceptionally kind to me and to my family.

"'Outside of this one thing he was a grand man. And when I said so to Mr. Thaw he said that only made Stanford White the more dangerous.

"'He had a strong personality and had many friends, and they believed in him and could not believe anything bad about him. And even when they believed, they said: "Too bad. He is so good."'

"Can there be any grander, better panegyric, uttered than this by this girl on the stand. I am here not to defend Stanford White. That he had his faults, his gross faults, no one will deny.

"But there is a difference between the brute, and the unchaste. Her own words have ruined this Jekyl and Hyde theory.

"Next time, Mr. Hartridge, that you take things and papers belonging to Evelyn Thaw out of a storage warehouse, take good care that you do not leave behind such a book as this.

"Can it be possible that now, at twenty-two, she could look back to the time when she was fifteen and pronounce so grand a panegyric upon a brute?