"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?" But Judith was off and away, running up the terraces, and her exclamation of distress reached him indistinctly, "Oh, _why_ didn't I stay at the house!" X THE INFINITELY PAINFUL THING Judith was not running to the house; she cut across the terraces to the stables, and Baird followed her with all the speed possible to him. And yet he did not catch up with her until after she had reached the group of men and horses. When he came up they had just parted, four horsemen off at a gallop down the road in the direction of the Post-Road, two men and Judith left standing beneath the stable lantern. Baird recognized Edward and the colonel as he came up, and he was near enough to hear Edward's more distinct answer to Judith's indistinct question: "Yes--Garvin--to the Mine Banks.... My _God_!" "What has happened?" Baird asked breathlessly. All three turned on him, and Baird saw Judith's white hand grip Edward's arm. He was answered by a curious silence, a portentous silence that conveyed a sense of tragedy. It was Judith who spoke finally: "They are after Garvin's horse, Mr. Baird," she said evenly and clearly. Garvin's horse? Baird looked from one to the other, three white faces carven into sudden and violent self-control. There was something in the way in which they faced him that affected Baird queerly. They stood together as if they hid something infinitely painful from him that the light of the lantern failed to reveal; something that hurt and shamed them, and yet about which they rallied determinedly--as Judith had lied, clearly and resolutely; as if they stood guard over a painful secret, and appealed to him to respect it.