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Evelyn Thaw’s Own Frank Revelations of Her Kaleidoscopic Career Which Touched Life at All Points—The Innocent Little Beauty Who Almost Starved to Death Harry assIon, 1 their lably I 'sed he former lood. 1 In’t be don of ras too ght t« e days ig ago- hi* cot he hoi] aby ws i n’t hav 1 at m ould nc ,rry, tot i said t •woman can be and live. 1 could not work—the very figures I had modelled seemed to mock at roe, as though they were say ing: ‘‘Aha! what's the use?" I had played my last card and lost. j\>r the moment I was what Harry Thaw was determined I ihould be. He had won, I, a young woman, healthy in body and mind, whose wits ex traordinary circumstances had sharpened acutely, was out matched by a crazy man! I, who, at the end of six days of cross-examination, had retained my composure whiie the mighty Jerome had groped his way out of the courtroom on the verge of collapse, was doomed, strangled, suffocated in the grasp of a maniac who was safe under lock and key! But was I—was I—was I? A bit of courage crept back into my veins. The reviving cur rent grew stronger. Presently I had found myself. I thought of my baby, and that thought transformed me from a crushed creature into the type of the most important woman in the world. I glowed again with determination. Every purely selfish am bition and desire was swept away by it. I rose far above my mere personal self—I was one of those only really Important women who are able to revive humanity by bringing vital new beings into the world and -who accept the responsibility with Joy. No woman could make herself greater than that. And to wel come the opportunity, at the cost of any personal sacrifice, to bring forth, and cherish and protect and shape the destiny of another human creature was to gain reinforcements of strength and courage that less fortunate women know nothing about. “I Would Not Tell My Husband My Secret!” \ I , sick f, 3 my eel , age ha> Harry' i m bein ■lew. H help xn pt ever n like I shoul led an' ted as' i My husband had cruelly stultified me, condemned me to the galleys of his absolute rule. Well, I would see that this new- being should be mine—mine absolutely. I alone would cherish it and find the means to support it, and together we would fl id a way to emancipate ourselves. Prom childhood it had been my habit to keep great things to myself. This was immeasurably the greatest thing in my life. 1 would start on that foundation; I would still share my secret with no one. And on that basis I reasoned out any problem fully. ‘‘I won’t tell him—I won’t tell anybody.” I made that determination as much a part of me as my brain or heart. "The child shall be mine, mine only,” I told myself. “I’m done with Harry K. Thaw and all his kin. Something will happen. Something Will happen to make my secret secure. Some good fortune will enable me to quietly disappear. I'll go away— somehow, where no one will recognize me and no one will think of searching for me.” Then came an Inspiration, t thought of two faithful friends in whose hearts my secret would be as safe as though it re mained locked securely in my own. As 1 am writing these lines three years later, that estimate he fidelity of these two friends remains unchanged. From of them I borrowed enough money to take me to Europe maintain me there for several months. le other-a girl friend, an actress—applauded all my resolu- 3 and volunteered to accompany me abroad and remain with there until It was necessary for her to return and resume wofik in the Autumn. Here I pay this girl a compliment ih few women have the strength of character, the sense of ir, to deserve. My secret was one that was most difficult to i, especially for her; she was so widely known In different les to be my most intimate friend and confidante, le never opened her lips—not even when, more than two s later, the story tame out in print. Nobody got so much as nt from her. iShe was wonderful. Such honor, such fidelity, gift. If you are not born wKh it you acquire it with diffl- y and at the expense of many hard knocks. , the m*an* were settled, and only the way» to be con red and decided upon. This is the way my mind worked: 'he greatest thing that can ever happen to any woman is g to happen to me. Nobody shall share In my Joy and my nph—nobody shall know. I’ll go to Khiva or Bokhara-111 o the ends of the earth if necessary. ad yet—I was still so furious at Harry that when the idea led upon me that I might continue to receive his allowance jventy dollars a week. 1 promptly permitted myself to agree figured out a way to insure the continuation of that allcrw- > and go to Europe in spite of his arrogant orders to the rary. am afraid that the actual fact that I did not now need ry’s money made my malicious delight in outwitting hto Dr. Sillo all the greater. What a beautiful jolt to , an masterful lord! needed a confederate-but it was not necessary for me to e my great secret with him. He would be delighted enough in Forlorn Poverty and Suddenly Burst Into the Most Brilliant Star That Ever Illuminated New York’s Gay World to "put. one oveT’’ on Harry Thaw. I had picked him out for that reason. I went to him. “I’m disobeying Harry,” I said. “I’m going to Europe for quite a long visit, contrary to his positive orders. If he hears about it. he’ll stop my weekly seventy-dollar check—and I’ll need the money. Besides, the checks come through Br. Sillo, and he hands them to me personally.” “ ‘Any more complications?’ he asked resign* eaiy. “Of course, I can't ask Dr, Sillo to connive at my disobedience and forward the checks to me in Europe. Besides, when checks are indorsed and paid, they come back to the sender, telling their own story of their travels.” “Tib listening.’ “And,” T went on, “although Harry is Insane, I would be still crazier even to think of asking him to drop Dr. Sillo as his agent and make the checks payable to you as my attorney. Besides, I’ve quit asking Harry Thaw to do anything.” “ ‘You have a luxuriant crop of hair,’ said my friend. “Is there anything else on your mind?’ "WiH yon help me fool both Harry Thaw and Dr. Sillo in this affair?” I asked. “ ‘With the utmost pleasure,’ he answered, with a grin that proved he meant it “Thank you. Very well, then—listen. I’m one of those women who isn’t afraid to tell a ‘whop- peri in a good cause. Believe me, my cause ks a good one. “I will tell Dr. Sillo, and he will tell Harry, that I'm going up to some quiet place in Canada where 1 can have a good rest, away frond the re porters and other excitements of New York, and ask him to hand my checks to you to be for warded. “They’ll jump at my decision to go into seclu sion for a while, somewhere not too far away. And there can be no suspicion about Canada. ‘This arranged, I’ll sail quietly for Europe. You will always have my latest address, to which you will forward my checks. Pll indorse them and send them back to you. You will turn them in to your own bank and send me your per sonal check for the amount. In this way Harry Thaw’s checks made payable to me will bear no record of their travels to get my indorsement before being cashed in New York. Harry will simply think it my whim to keep him in the dark about my exact ‘Canadian’ address.” The scheme went through ‘sailing,” Just as I have described it. During all the time I was in Europe for the great occasion I’ve been telling you about I received Harry’s allowance aa promptly as possible by these roundabout meth ods. The “ethics” of the matter never bothered me. I felt—and feel to this day—that “the end Justified the means.” So all my important arrangements were made. But there was no reason why I should hurry Evelyn Thaw Running Away to Europe in Disguise. “I put on a long tan duster of the cheape t, most depressing sort and a homely brown hat I pulled my hair back and twisted it in a lump. Then I took a black make-up pencil and lined my face. And I put on spectacles and a veil. I was hideous. My own mother wouldn’t have recog nized me. Now you Can picture me as, with a shabby bag in my hand, I scrambled up the gang plank with my girl friend marching before me.’’ away. My spirits were restored and my happiness and exultation greater than I can describe. 1 was looking extremely well—never better. I went about everywhere—to the theatres, to my favorite restaurants after the performance, enjoyed the society of my old friends freely. “How well you are looking, Evelyn!” That became a stereotyped remark. It didn't seem to me that I had a care or worry left. And it was all because of my baby. Harry, having gained his point—as he supposed—was keeping quiet and improving, so I heard, through the health-restoring opportunities afforded to all well-behaved prisoners at Mattea- wan. I was not hearing from him at all, direct—except in the way of the weekly check. I didn’t care to hear in any other way. As for the Thaw family and the Thaw lawyers, they no longer meant anything to me—no more than I meant to them. But I didn’t allow my restored spirits and my sense of per sonal triumph to lure me into recklessness. 1 was careful not to take any real risk of my secret being discovered. So the time presently came for me and my loyal girl com panion to arrange the details of our mysterious “getaway”—as the bright young men in Mr. Jerome’s office would have called it. I had no fear of any sort of Thaw espionage. They were leaving me as severely alone as was possible. But it was abso lutely necessary to fool the newspaper reporters. At present there was no fresh aspect of the “Thaw case” or of my troubles with creditors to keep them alert. But 1 had learned by ex perience that detectives had usurped a reputation which did not belong to them—that it is actually reporters who “never sleep ” At first we considered sailing from some port otlhei than New York. The plan was discarded as Increasing the compHca tlons of departure without anry real gain of security from dis covery. A small, obscure vessel slipping away from an unfrequented pier? Plan discarded as the very way to focus the “limelight” upen passengers that had anything mysterious about them. One of the biggest, new sbi-day steamshiips. casting off from the most crowded North “River pier? A multitude of boarding passengers, and another crowding, pushing multitude seeing them off, with no eyes for anybody but their friends, wives or sweethearts? Reporters scrambling about frantically to keep tab on celebri ties of the passenger list—no time for mysteries, for suspicious characters? “Right-o!” That was the idea. But even then consummate disguises would be as necessary as assumed names. No risks! Does all this interest you? It interested me immensely. After what I’ve told you, you should believe that I’d rather have died than failed. Let what I’m telling you sound like a page from some “penny dreadful”—that doesn’t matter, for it's the truth, and all these precautions were vital to the success of my enterprise. Well, then, my disguise. That matter was not of so much importance in the case of my companion. She was comparatively little known to the reporters. My stage experience helped me in the disguise part. I must not merely disguise •myse.f In the ordinary fashion; I must transform myself—become a different sort of character. Here 1 was, glowing with health and buoyancy of spirit—radiating Evelyn Nesbit Thaw all over the place. That was my real character. What then, should be my assumed character? Naturally the opposite extreme—a meek, mild, subdued, tired creature, retiring, shrinking, drab and colorless. Aha' a depressed spinster of uncertain age—a washed-out New England “schoolmarm.” That was the idea, and if it turns out that I’m condemned to the stage for life. I’ll never accomplish a more triumphant feat of “make-up’’ than this, which made my escape completely suc cessful. First I bought a long tan duster—ot the cheapest, most de pressing sort, that no one would honor with a second glance. Then 1 invested in the homeliest brown—dirty brown—hat that ever was seen in this world. Oh, it was vile. Not the sort of hat that fits your head as a hat should, but the sort that a certain type of women perch on their scalps and pin on through the hair—that sort; you know what I mean. It was without form absolutely, and ‘‘void,’’ like the world was before it began. I pulled my hair back and put water on it, and twisted it in a tight lump at the back of my head and a most unpleasant angle. I made a regular “bun” of it. Goodness, I was a sight! Then I took a black “make-up” pencil and made a few of the very faintest lines in my face. And 1 put on spectacles—hideous spectacles—the very ugliest I could find. They were awful! Even at this stage my own mother wouldn’t have known me. Now came the very important matter of a veil. No perfectly proper New England “sdhoolmarrn” would dream of going out into a strange world unveiled. It must be a veil not too thick, because a woman who is heavily veiled always attracts attention. Yet it mu3t be thick enough to obscure the faint lines 1 had drawn in my face, and make them appear those characteristic lines which nature draws on the countenances of hopeless spinsters troubled with in somnia and a bad digestion. So I equipped myself with a medium weight brown veil, put it on, and stood before a full-length mirror and applied the “acid test.” Actually, I couldn’t recognize myself! For good measure I bought a reckless-looking green umbrella —and a pair of "goloshes.” Now you can picture me as, with a shabby bag in my’ hand and my fashionably gowned companion by my side, I de scended from the Sixth avenue elevated and trudged down to the pier, barely In time to scramble up the gangplank. Unnoticed, unknown, all of my true self buried in dowdiness and homeliness. I scrambled up, my true girl friend marching before me; a plain barnyard hen following a bird of paradise. And the bugle blew, the whistles screamed, the reporters marched off—and in her stateroom, identity still hidden, sat Evelyn Thaw, on her way to freedom for the first time in her eventful career. I was going into freedom to bear my glorious baby—as free as ( of the Thaws, their myrmidons and their millions. Next Week Evelyn Thaw Will Tell the crets of Her Hidden Life Abrcad—of the Coining of Her Child to He I