his daughter's, and which no one
had used since she left, and in the silence of the night again he could
hear heartbreaking sobs half-stifled.

'Poor soul! poor soul!' he said to himself. 'She's a good creature is
Jane, and no doubt she's bitterly disappointed. I 'll make it up to
her somehow. She's a faithful, good soul!'

He was restless and uncomfortable himself, and he told himself he had
taken cold and was a bit feverish. It was feverish fancy, no doubt,
that made him think the hollow where the child's light weight had
rested was still perceptible, but this fancy outlasted the fever of
that night and the cold that caused it, for there was hardly a night
afterwards when Mr Robins did not detect its presence, even with all
Jane Sands' thorough shaking of the feather-bed and careful spreading
of sheets and blankets. If he dropped asleep for a minute that night
the child was in his arms again, heavy as lead, weighing him down,
down, down, into some unfathomable gulf, or he was feeling for it in
the dark, and its face was cold as death; and more than once he woke
with a start, feeling certain that a child's cry had sounded close to
his bed.

CHAPTER IV.

Village Evidence--'Gray' on the Brain--Too Well He Knew--Mr Robins and
the Baby--He Had Not Done Badly

There is certainly a penalty paid by people who keep entirely clear of
gossip, though it is not by any means in proportion to the advantages
they gain. The penalty is that when they particularly want to hear any
piece of news, they are not likely to hear it naturally like other
people, but must go out of their way to make inquiries and evince a
curiosity which at once makes them remarkable.

Now every one in the village except Mr Robins heard of the baby found
in the Grays' garden, and discussed how it came there, but it was only
by overhearing a casual word here and there that the organist gathered
even so much as that the Grays had resolved to keep the child, and were
not going to send it to the workhouse. Even Bill Gray knew the
organist's ways too well to trouble him with the story, though he was
too full of it himself to give his usual attention at the next choir
practice, and, at every available pause between chant and hymn, his
head and that of the boy next him were close together in deep discourse.

It had occurred to Mr Robins' mind, in the waking moments of that
restless night, that there might have been--nay, most probably
was--some