ith
himself for the throb that the touch sent to his heart, hastened his
steps, and had soon reached the Grays' cottage and deposited his burden
just inside the gate, where a few minutes after Gray found it. He
could see Mrs Gray plainly as she sat at her work: a pleasant, motherly
face; but he did not linger to look at it, but turned away and retraced
his steps along the field path home. He found himself shivering as he
went; the air seemed to have grown more chilly and penetrating without
that warm burden against his heart, and the unaccustomed weight had
made his arms tremble.

Somehow the house looked dull and uncomfortable, though Jane Sands had
come in and lighted the lamp, and was laying his supper. Up-stairs
there was a hollow on his bed where something had lain, and by the side
of the bed he found a baby's woollen shoe, which might have betrayed
him to Jane if she had gone up-stairs. But though he put it out of
sight directly, he felt sure that the whole matter was no secret from
Jane, and that she had been an accomplice in the trick that had been
played on him, and he smiled to himself at the thought of how he had
outwitted her, and of how puzzled she must be to know what had become
of the baby.

He did his best to appear as tranquil and composed as usual, as if
nothing had happened to disturb the ordinary current of his life, and
he forced himself to make a few remarks on indifferent subjects when
she came into the room.

She had evidently been crying, and was altogether in a nervous and
upset condition. She forgot half the things he wanted at supper, and
her hand trembled so that she nearly overturned the lamp. More than
once she stopped and looked at him as if she were nerving herself to
speak, and he knew quite well the question that was trembling on her
lips. 'Where is the child? Master, where is the child?' But he would
not help her in any way, and he quite ignored the agitation that was
only too evident; and even when he went into the kitchen to fetch his
pipe, and found her with her face buried in her arms on the kitchen
table, shaking with irrepressible sobs, he retreated softly into the
passage and called to her to bring the pipe, and when, after a long
delay, she brought it in, he was apparently absorbed in his paper, and
took no notice of her tear-stained face and quivering lips.

He heard her stirring far into the night, and once she went into the
little room next his that used to be