She suddenly burst into tears.
“Yes,” she answered, “I—I couldn’t help it.”
She checked herself and wiped her tears away with the shawl corner almost immediately.
“I wanted to know something about her,” she said. “Nobody seemed to know nothin’, only that she was dead. When they said you’d come home, it seemed like I couldn’t rest until I’d heard something.”
“What do you want to hear?” said Latimer.
It struck Baird that the girl’s manner was a curious one. It was a manner which seemed to conceal beneath its shamefaced awkwardness some secret fear or anxiety. She gave Latimer a hurried, stealthy look, and then her eyes fell. It was as if she would have read in his gloomy face what she did not dare to ask.
“I’d be afraid to die myself,” she stammered. “I can’t bear to think of it. I’m afraid. Was she?”
“No,” Latimer answered.
The girl gave him another dull, stealthy look.
“I’m glad of that,” she said; “she can’t have minded so much if she wasn’t afraid. I’d like to think she didn’t mind it so much—or suffer.”