I sent Tim Slade a copy of this letter, relating the circumstances, and telling him how nervous every little thing made me.
After I had mailed this letter to Mr. Votaw, I went home and thought the whole matter over carefully that night in bed, and the following day I wrote Mrs. Votaw a brief note, telling her I felt that if anyone came to New York to talk with me it would more logically be she than Mr. Votaw. I apprised Tim Slade of what I had written, keeping him thus in touch with my own steps.
The following day I received an answer to my letter to Mr. Votaw. It reached me the same day it was dated, January 29th, and was as strictly formal as mine to him had been. Very briefly Mr. Votaw advised me that he had not called for me at The Town Hall Club on the date my letter was written, "nor at any other time." The italicized words were heavily underscored on the typewriter by Mr. Votaw, who, I assumed, had himself typed the letter to me. He went on to say that he had not tried to reach me at my home either, and informed me that he had not been in New York City at all for more than two years.
That was all the letter contained. Never an allusion to the matter which I deemed of as great moment to the Hardings and Votaws as to myself as the mother of their brother's and my child. In fact, the letter from Mr. Votaw to me was merely one of complete negation and indifference.
Simply to read this note from Mr. Votaw made me ill all over and brought on a state of high nervous tension which usually possessed me when I came face to face with some new obstacle in my fight for Elizabeth Ann's rights. I have never, as a matter
