Page:The Great Harry Thaw Case.djvu/85

 Frail, young, her fair name shattered, her love for husband surpassing that of Thisbe for Pyramus, she laid down her bleeding heart upon the altar of the soul, and gave herself a living sacrifice to save her husband from the electric chair.

In the midst of her story of her shame, the beautiful bride broke down and cried bitterly. Restoratives were applied, and, fighting with the life of her loved one as the stake, the piteously fragile and surpassingly pretty young wife continued with the story of her ruin at the hands of a modern Nero, for so she painted White.

Mrs. Thaw was on the stand two hours, and her direct examination had not been concluded when the luncheon adjournment was taken. As she walked from the witness chair along the passageway back of the jury box she felt along the wall with the finger tips of her left hand as if about to faint. From scarlet her faced had paled to the whiteness of a sheet.

Except when she broke down when going into the details of her experience with White the girl spoke in a clear, soft voice. On the witness stand she appeared for the first time in court unveiled, and her beauty was remarked on all sides. It is of a girlish type, a mass of dark hair framing a face of daintily molded features.

"Evelyn Nesbit Thaw," called the clerk in a tragic voice, as soon as the trial opened for what was fated to be its greatest day.