That night Ford did not respond to the tinkle of the tea bell.  His head ached abominably, and he did not want to see Josephine’s averted face opposite him at the table.  He lay still upon the bed where he had finally thrown himself, and let the bell tinkle until it was tired.

They sent Buddy in to see why he did not come.  Buddy looked at him with the round, curious eyes of precocious childhood and went back and reported that Ford wasn’t asleep, but was just lying there mad.  Ford heard the shrill little voice innocently maligning him, and swore to himself; but, he did not move for all that.  He lay thinking and fighting discouragement and thirst, while little table sounds came through the partition and made a clicking accompaniment to his thoughts.

If he were free, he was wondering between spells of temptation, would it do any good?  Would Josephine care?  There was no answer to that, or if there was he did not know what it was.

After awhile the two women began talking; he judged that Buddy had left them, because it was sheer madness to speak so freely before him.  At first he paid no attention to what they were saying, beyond a grudging joy in the sound of Josephine’s voice.  It had come to that, with Ford!  But when he heard his name spoken, and by her, he lifted shamelessly to an elbow and listened, glad that the walls were so thin, and that those who dwell in thin-partitioned houses are prone to forget that the other rooms may not be quite empty.  They two spent most of their waking hours alone together, and habit breeds carelessness always.

“Do you suppose he’s drunk?” Mrs. Kate asked, and her voice was full of uneasiness.  “Chester says he’s terrible when he gets started.  I was sure he was perfectly safe!  I just can’t stand it to have him like this.  Dick told me he’s drinking a little all the time, and there’s no telling when he’ll break out, and—­Oh, I think it’s perfectly terrible!”

“Hsh-sh,” warned Josephine.

“He went out, quite a while ago.  I heard him,” said Mrs. Kate, with rash certainty.  “He hasn’t been like himself since that day he fought Dick.  He must be—­”

“But how could he?” Josephine’s voice interrupted sharply.  “That jug he’s got is full yet.”

Ford could imagine Mrs. Kate shaking her head with the wisdom born of matrimony.

“Don’t you suppose he could keep putting in water?” she asked pityingly.  Ford almost choked when he heard that!

“I don’t believe he would.”  Josephine’s tone was dubious.  “It doesn’t seem to me that a man would do that; he’d think he was just spoiling what was left.  That,” she declared with a flash of inspiration, “is what a woman would do.  And a man always does something different!” There was a pathetic note in the last sentence, which struck Ford oddly.

“Don’t think you know men, my dear, until you’ve been married to one for eight years or so,” said Mrs. Kate patronizingly.  “When you’ve been—­”