She had lifted him quickly out of coldness into something warmer than admiration. His doubts had melted like a fog under sunshine. He took her hand and kissed it. "There are few things I would not do for you, Wonder-woman.... Thank you, dear."
He would have kept her hand, but she drew it away, and Baird was almost instantly glad that she did. He was forgetting himself. The thing he liked best in her was her aloofness. "I've often wanted to thank you for the way you have taken me in and made me feel at home," he declared. "I've never had much of that sort of kindness shown me—I appreciate it."
"I want you to feel at home at Westmore," she answered. "You must come often—and always be nice to me." She had regained her usual graceful vivacity. "Some day we will ride all over the place and you shall become really acquainted with it.... Do you see that group of trees beyond there, against the sky? That is our family burying-ground—generations of Westmores. There are several quaint tombstones up there."
"You keep even your dead to yourselves, don't you? In a way, I like the clannishness of it. You keep everything to yourselves, birth and marriage and death.... I think there's too much fuss and ceremony over all three. The first is generally a misfortune, the second is apt to be no cause for rejoicing, and the end of it all no real reason for mourning."
It was the first time Judith had heard this note from him. "Mr. Baird! How unlike you!... It might be Garvin talking."
Baird did not want to talk about Garvin, so he made no reply. There was silence for a time. For some unaccountable reason Baird was touched by depression. This family with their close interests reminded him that no one would care particularly how he lived or when he died.
He was aroused by Judith's sudden movement. She was sitting taut, her hood flung back. "What is it?" he asked.
Her hand caught his arm, a grip of steel. "Hush!" she said sharply. "Listen!... There are voices at the barn—and don't you hear galloping—on the road? Don't you hear it?"
Baird could hear it distinctly, furious galloping, now a thud on soft ground, then the click of hoofs against stones, and several men's voices at the barn.
"Yes, I hear it—what has happened?"