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for then he might have died in glory—he might have died when public mourning would have attended his obsequies; he might have died before his name had become a byword; before his genius had become an aggravation.

"But fate had decreed it otherwise. The poor child, returning to her senses, not realizing what had been done, was taken back to her home, there to sit in lonely vigil until he went back the next day to complete the pollution he had but partially begun the night before. It remained for him to destroy the last vestige of womanly honor in her mind, and he performed that task after daylight that day.

"He went there—he, the strong man, kissed the hem of her garment; told her to dry her tears, and to stifle her moans; told her that what she did was not wrong, that it was but what all women did; that the only sin was to be found out, and that if she would but keep the dread secret pent up in her breast and not tell her mother all would be well; that all women were wicked; that the only distinction was that some succeeded in concealing their vices, while others were found out.

"And so he left her. And so he lured her again and again, plying her with wine in the same dens for a couple of months.

"Is this story true, gentlemen, or, rather, is the story I have related to you the story Evelyn Nesbit told Harry Thaw in June, 1903, in Paris—that, gentlemen, is one of the main questions which you have to decide in this case and in the elucidation of which I may be permitted to occupy a little of your attention.

"The prosecution says this story is a clever lie—the result of the imagination of this defendant's wife. Your first inquiry must be into the veracity of Evelyn Nesbit. If she never told Thaw this thing, then she has been an untruthful witness before you.

"She gave this testimony: 'And those things you told