"Well, she needn't take my word for it if she don't want to, I guess,"
he muttered. "Nothing like heading off a critter--or a woman--in time!"
Josephine did not hesitate upon the doorstep. She opened the door and
went in, and shut the door behind her before the echo of her step had
died. Ford was lying as he had lain once before, upon a bunk, with his
face hidden in his folded arms. He did not hear her--at any rate he did
not know who it was, for he did not lift his head or stir.
Josephine looked at the jug upon the floor beside him, bent and lifted
it very gently from the floor; tilted it to the window so that she could
look into it, tilted her nose at the odor, and very, very gently put it
back where she had found it. Then she stood and looked down at Ford with
her eyebrows pinched together.
She did not move, after that, and she certainly did not speak, but her
presence for all that became manifest to him. He lifted his head and
stared at her over an elbow; and his eyes were heavy with trouble, and
his mouth was set in lines of bitterness.
"Did you want me for something?" he asked, when he saw that she was not
going to speak first.
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