The door opened and Fanny entered with a face full of tragedy.
She closed the door.
"What do you think Susannah has told me?" She spoke in a low voice as if death were in the house.
"What?"
"James has come in and he has—had too much!"
"You don't mean to say that he is intoxicated?"
"I do," said Fanny with her voice filled with tears.
"How disgraceful! I will go down and turn him out." Then he remembered that he could not very well turn him out considering that he was in possession.
"For goodness sake don't even hint that to him, or he may go," cried Fanny in alarm, "for, when he gets like this, he always talks of leaving at once, because his calling is a disgrace to him, and if he went, Susannah would follow him."
"But, my dear girl," cried Charles, "how dare that wretched Susannah—ahem—why, he's a married man, you told me so; surely she knows that."