Marvin nodded with half-closed eyes at Hammond and smiled reassuringly at Bill. "You also said he was cruel to his wife?" Hammond nodded. "In what way?" Hammond hesitated, moving uneasily from side to side. "Well," he snarled, "his manner was insulting. He criticized the dress she was wearing before the other guests." This amused the court-room, which in turn had to be quieted. "And do you think the claim of intolerable cruelty is substantiated by a husband's criticizing his wife's dress?" asked Marvin, smiling. Thomas arose at once. "I object to that question," he said, his lips twitching and his face livid from disappointment and fear of what was coming next. "I should think you would!" Marvin said, laughing. The objection sustained, he went at his witness again. "You testified that Mr. Jones was a drunkard and that you had never seen him sober?" "I never have," emphasized Hammond, insolently. Going to the table, Marvin took Bill by the arm, assisted him to his feet and guided him into the middle of the court-room until he stood before the witness-stand. Then he asked of Hammond, motioning with his head toward Bill, "Is he drunk now?" Bill stood quietly, a quizzical smile half closing his eyes, half opening his mouth. Hammond, infuriated, swallowed in order to control himself, and then blurted with a disgusted shrug of his shoulders, "I don't know." Having fulfilled Marvin's intention, Bill took his seat again and the cross-examination was resumed. "If you don't know whether he is drunk or not now, how did you know the other time when you saw him?" Hammond gazed fiercely into space, replying, finally, "Oh, it was plain enough then!" Seeing that Hammond was ruffled and that he was also confused, Marvin felt that the time was now right to bring forth by a few swift, well-put questions the full purpose of Hammond and Thomas in bringing about the divorce between Bill and Mrs. Jones. "It was not possible for you to get a good title to the property unless Mr. Jones signed the deed?" he asked. At once Thomas was on his feet, objecting. On Marvin's explanation that the complaint charged intoxication and that his question had a direct bearing on that point, the judge overruled the objection and Thomas took his seat again. Not discerning the trap that Marvin had set for him, Hammond turned to the judge and said, in more even tones: "I don't mind answering in the least. The property belonged entirely to Mrs. Jones, but the husband's signature was wanted on the deed." "And he refused to sign it?" Marvin's question came back. "Yes," Hammond sneered, "after you told him not to." Marvin once more challenged Hammond's soul with the searchlight of his own straightforward eye. "Was he drunk then?" he asked. Hammond paused, then shrugged his shoulders. "Yes, I think he was." "I am not asking you what you think," Marvin remarked. "You said under oath that you never saw him sober. Was he drunk when he refused to sign that deed?"