No one ever denied that Stanford White, no matter what he may have been, was a generous giver, a good Samaritan in the time of need. He supported Evelyn, her mother, and her brother, in royal fashion.
What was to be deduced from the largess of White, both to the Nesbits and to scores of others?
Was the licentious architect a Jekyll and a Hyde?
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.
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.