By suggestion of the judge the jury rendered a verdict of guilty; there was nothing else to do, and the prisoner was sentenced to the penitentiary for three years.  His counsel, who had objected to nothing and had made no plea for lenity—­had, in fact, hardly said a word—­wrung his client’s hand and left the room.  It was obvious to the whole bar that he had been engaged only to prevent the court from appointing counsel who might possibly insist on making a defense.

John Hardshaw served out his term at San Quentin, and when discharged was met at the prison gates by his wife, who had returned from “the States” to receive him.  It is thought they went straight to Europe; anyhow, a general power-of-attorney to a lawyer still living among us—­ from whom I have many of the facts of this simple history—­was executed in Paris.  This lawyer in a short time sold everything that Hardshaw owned in California, and for years nothing was heard of the unfortunate couple; though many to whose ears had come vague and inaccurate intimations of their strange story, and who had known them, recalled their personality with tenderness and their misfortunes with compassion.

Some years later they returned, both broken in fortune and spirits and he in health.  The purpose of their return I have not been able to ascertain.  For some time they lived, under the name of Johnson, in a respectable enough quarter south of Market Street, pretty well put, and were never seen away from the vicinity of their dwelling.  They must have had a little money left, for it is not known that the man had any occupation, the state of his health probably not permitting.  The woman’s devotion to her invalid husband was matter of remark among their neighbors; she seemed never absent from his side and always supporting and cheering him.  They would sit for hours on one of the benches in a little public park, she reading to him, his hand in hers, her light touch occasionally visiting his pale brow, her still beautiful eyes frequently lifted from the book to look into his as she made some comment on the text, or closed the volume to beguile his mood with talk of—­what?  Nobody ever overheard a conversation between these two.  The reader who has had the patience to follow their history to this point may possibly find a pleasure in conjecture:  there was probably something to be avoided.  The bearing of the man was one of profound dejection; indeed, the unsympathetic youth of the neighborhood, with that keen sense for visible characteristics which ever distinguishes the young male of our species, sometimes mentioned him among themselves by the name of Spoony Glum.