"No," sobbed Susan.
"Nor in jail?"
"No." Another sob.
"Nor in any serious trouble?"
"Trouble enough, Heaven knows! Mother has gone. I don't know what to do.
All the nice people we used to visit with have turned against us."
"But our happiness does not depend upon nice people, you know, dear Susan."
"But he is getting into the strangest ways! Shabby folks, with long beards, come to see him. He has left off family devotions."
Susan was weeping; when, at a quick step in the hall, she took alarm, and hurried from the room, just in time to hide her tears from her husband.
"Alone?" said Pendlam.
"No; Susan has just left me."