His employer then came forward, stating that he had known the prisoner from boyhood. They were apprenticed together, and for several years he had employed him. The prisoner’s devoted love for the wretched woman was the marvel of all who knew him. He had personally and frequently pleaded of him to give her up and go to live with his sons, who were anxious to find a home for him; but he had always refused. Two sons came forward and told the story of their father’s devotion and their mother’s shame, and begged piteously that their father might not be punished. They would be bail for him; they would take him home with them; they would look after him. There was a breathless silence in court while waiting for the magistrate’s decision, and down the cheeks of many present tears were stealing; even the court officials, case-hardened as they must become, looked very moist about the eyes. The magistrate said: ‘Prisoner, this is a terrible assault. It is only by God’s mercy that you are not standing there charged with murder. You ought to have left this wretched woman long ago. I can’t give you less than six months’ imprisonment.’ A scene followed that I shall not easily forget. An involuntary groan passed through the court. The two sons rushed forward in front of the magistrate, saying: ‘Oh, for God’s sake don’t say that! don’t say that! He’ll never come out alive! He’ll never come out alive!’ The old man was taken to his cell, the sons went outside, and I went to try to comfort them--a vain task, for they were wringing their hands, and the cry like a sorrowful refrain came from them: ‘He’ll never come out alive! He’ll never come out alive!’ And the old woman went to the workhouse, the sons to their home, and the old man to his prison. There was no light at eventide for them, no glow after the sunset for the old couple, for in six months’ time a white-haired old man, bent and broken, was met at the prison gates by his two sons, who took him home with them. Every month an old woman from the workhouse was locked up for drunkenness, charged in the same dock where the sorrowful-faced old man had stood, and received her usual short term of imprisonment. And the old man reaped not the fruit of his long years of patient endurance, beautiful faith and marvellous devotion, for death soon came to him, and no wife was present to close his eyes. And when she shortly afterwards died in the workhouse there were no sons present to bid her a long farewell.