Page:The Great Harry Thaw Case.djvu/254



"She looked up to the man she loved and she did not want the man she loved to be pointed at with the finger of scorn.

"In her little heart she said, 'Oh, Harry, I love you. I love you so much that I will not drag you down. I want to leave you free, and the moment you say so I shall return to my own sad way. You shall be free and happy and I will go down until I, like many others, have disappeared from the world.'

"The sneer, then, is unjustified. The sublime renunciation did take place, although we men may not rise above our sordid occupations to realize it. Do you remember how his mother saw him holding his vigil in his room; heard him sob and moan, and how he told her about the awful wrongs done to a little girl whom he loved?

"And he told her he desired to protect the child from the vile wrong that had been done her; that he had proposed marriage, and that she—I quote the very words of the mother—that she had refused because she would not drag him down.

"Has this gray-haired and venerable mother in Israel come here to perjure herself, or did he deceive her when he told her that he wanted to extend his protecting arm over the girl whom the other had betrayed; that she, the poor little girl who was earning her living by the talents God had given her—she refused the man, not because she did not love him, but because she thought it would not be fitting to wed the man she so dearly loved.

"Sublime, indeed, was the renunciation of this girl, unless the mother of Harry Thaw has not told the truth upon the stand. I return to her story as told in her own words. She says: 'He talked altogether too much of this thing. He did not sleep nights. He cried too much about it. It was not crying, but terrible sobbing. He would sit