All the ruins of her shattered hopes, apparently, were clinging to it, making it seem to weigh a ton!
Scarce seeing where she stepped, the girl hurried toward the home of her friends. Once the idea occurred to her that she would not go to the Priors, but, taking a room at the hotel, wail till Tim arrived on the evening train, meet him at the station and be married without delay.
Fear of Jesse, however, deterred her.
She knew that as soon as he had heard of her arrival from Cole, he would seek her at the Priors and, should he not find her, would search the town, subjecting himself to danger of capture by the detectives who had followed her.
Were her brothers to be discovered through her, she knew she could never forgive herself.
The only thing to do, she decided, was to meet Jesse. And as she trudged along, a little voice whispered:
"Perhaps you can persuade him to allow the wedding."
Her spirits buoyed by this thought, Susie responded lightly to the surprised, but hearty, greetings of the Priors.
During the dinner, to which the family was just sitting down when she arrived, her friends regaled her with the account of the doings of the mysterious strangers, whose wealth, bravery and deeds were the wonder of the Springs.
Smiling at the romance woven around her brother, Susie was on the point of enlightening them, when the pounding of hoofs was heard in the yard and looking from the window, Mr. Prior gasped: