A hush fell upon the Court when Gertrude Fairfax entered the box, a thrill passed through it when her clear but sweet and soft voice spoke. Very quietly, almost timidly, with nothing of the self-assurance and glib loquacity one hears in so many of the public women speakers and that takes the bloom off their womanhood, she told to the Bench, with little prompting from Edward, the story with which we are already acquainted. Insensibly there arose before the minds of all who heard her the picture of this pure, delicately-nurtured maiden, seated in a vile den, surrounded by rough men, and slattern, vicious women, speaking to them words of loving counsel and pleading with them for their good; of Pat Sullivan, at first resentful, then subsiding into sulky silence, then interested, then touched, and at length moved to promise of amendment, the forgotten tenderness for his wife revived, the angel within the man rescued from the death of sensuality and self-indulgence. As she told her simple tale, women in the body of the Court sobbed aloud, and even the stolid policemen looked human. The Mayor, an emotional man, furtively used his handkerchief. Then, when Beaumont adroitly threw in the remark: “You are not, I believe, a paid officer in the Army, Sister Gertrude; why should you concern yourself about the reformation of Patrick Sullivan?” The witness paused for one short moment, and then, with utmost naturalness and naiveté, not as one quoting, but as speaking from her own heart, said quietly: “Wist ye not that I must be about Father’s business?” “That is the case for the defence, Sir,” Said Beaumont, with a bow to the Bench. “We cannot convict upon such testimony,” said the Mayor, after consulting his colleagues. “We only hope this will be a warning to Sullivan. He shall go scot free this time, may God help him to be a better man.” “The Clerk ought to say ‘Amen,’” muttered Sam Storth, “and then the thing would be complete. We’d turn the Court into a church and dedicate it to St. Barabbas.” “That was a narrow squeak for Master Sullivan,” said Beaumont to Sister Gertrude. He found her waiting at the Court door, as he passed out of it at the rising of the Court—to thank him, she said. “There’s nothing to thank me for. It’s you they’ve to thank. I’m afraid, if you are returning to Duskin’s Lodging House, you won’t find Pat there cultivating the domestic virtues. He’ll be celebrating his victory over the allied forces of the brutal and bloody Sassenach in his national beverage at the ‘Wheatsheaf.’ The police will keep a sharper eye on him than ever now, and I hope he won’t give them another chance yet awhile. We can’t hope for a Thomas Hoyleham and a Sister Gertrude in conjunction every day in the planetary system of police administration. However, sufficient for the day’s the evil thereof.”