We need hardly say that the conversation was animated, and that it bore largely on the life-history of the absent Susy.
“You’re quite sure that she’ll be here by ten?” asked the excited father for the fiftieth time that afternoon.
“Yes, I’m sure of it—unless she’s kep’ late,” answered Liz.
But Susy did not return at the usual hour, so her impatient father was forced to conclude that she had been “kep’ late”—too late. In his anxiety he resolved to sally forth under the guidance of Tommy Splint to inquire for the missing Susy at the well-known establishment of Stickle and Screw.
Let us anticipate him in that quest. At the usual hour that night the employés of Stickle and Screw left work and took their several ways home ward. Susy had the company of her friend Lily Hewat as far as Chancery Lane. Beyond that point she had to go alone. Being summer-time, the days were long, and Susy was one of those strong-hearted and strong-nerved creatures who have a tendency to fear nothing.
She had just passed over London Bridge and turned into a labyrinth of small streets on the Surrey side of the river, when a drunken man met her in a darkish and deserted alley through which she had to pass. The man seized her by the arm. Susy tried to free herself. In the struggle that ensued she fell with a loud shriek, and struck her head on the kerb-stone so violently that she was rendered insensible. Seeing this, the man proceeded to take from her the poor trinkets she had about her, and would have succeeded in robbing her but for the sudden appearance on the scene of a lowland Scot clad in a homespun suit of shepherd’s plaid—a strapping ruddy youth of powerful frame, fresh from the braes of Yarrow.