Page:The Great Harry Thaw Case.djvu/48

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all belief, having as its only purpose the snaring of some young girl—as Evelyn Nesbit was enmeshed. And he could turn quite as lightly from the anguished cry of his victim and forget her in the multiplicity of details surrounding his huge undertakings.

What a mind was this—at once an engine of creation and destruction, accepting the consequences in each instance as a matter of course. In view of the peculiarities of the man, it cannot be counted strange that he fell before the hand of the avenger in the temple he had builded to mirth, for the famed Madison Square Garden was a creation of his mind.

In the tower he had raised above it, overlooking the great Metropolis with all its joys, sorrows, struggles, its mighty forces that work for good and its uncounted army battling for sin, Stanford White had fitted out a den of Oriental magnificence wherein he could accomplish his purposes, far removed from the world at large.

It was here his wildest orgies were held. It was from the tower-chamber his young victims went forth to lives of bitterness and shame, and within the shadow of that tower White was whirled to eternity without a moment's respite to atone for his sins or prepare for an accounting before the final tribunal where truth and not pretense avails. Whatever his offenses, his punishment was heavy, indeed.

Great as an architect, a lover of beauty in his work