Page:The Great Harry Thaw Case.djvu/253

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"Incredible, he would lead you to believe.

"'Impossible!' the district attorney says, and in the same breath intimates that it is a falsehood from beginning to end.

"I shall prove to you by evidence that will convince you beyond every doubt that this renunciation by Evelyn was sincere. But, thank God, the great Creator has placed in the breast of gentler woman the noble sentiment and renunciation for the consolation of the home and of the world.

"But I shall prove to you that it is true. I shall prove to you beyond the slightest doubt that she did refuse him, and refused him for that reason alone.

"Man, it may be, has not that great power of renunciation, but in the gentler breast of woman do we find that great gift of God, and in the breast of this little girl existed this great strength that enabled her to put aside her one love when she knew it was for the good of the one she loved.

"Sublime renunciation! Ah, it indeed is. Do you remember the letters he wrote three months after this sublime renunciation? He says in a letter written in September, 1903: 'Three months ago I asked her point-blank. She thought, but said she would not; that it would shut me out,' etc.

"The genuineness of this letter is not disputed; that it was written to Mr. Longfellow is not denied; that Mr. Longfellow was the trusted friend and adviser of Harry Thaw is admitted. Three months before September, 1903, when this was written, was in the early summer of 1903. Is not that true? Is it not true that she had refused him? In this letter he says she thought she did not want the man she loved to become an object of scorn.