, pleading voice and hollow cough, and the cold
denial he had given, and the beating rain and howling wind of that
dreary night. He grew by degrees to excuse himself to himself, and to
plead that he was taken unawares, and that, if she had not taken his
answer as final, but had followed him to the house, he should certainly
have relented.

And then he went a step further. I think it was one July day, when the
baby had been more than usually gracious to him, and he had ventured,
in Mrs Gray's absence, to lift her out of the cradle and carry her down
the garden path, finding her a heavier weight than when he had first
taken her to the Grays' cottage. She had clapped her hands at a great,
velvet-bodied humble bee; she had nestled her curly head into his neck,
and with the feeling of her soft breath on his cheek he had said to
himself: 'If Edith were to come back now, I would forgive her for the
baby's sake, for Zoe's sake.' He forgot that he had need to be
forgiven too. 'She will come back,' he told himself, 'she will come
back to see the child. She could not be content to hear nothing more
of her baby and never to see her, in spite of what she said. And when
she comes it shall be different, for Zoe's sake.'

He wondered if Jane Sands knew where Edith was, or ever heard from her.
He sometimes fancied that she did, and yet, if she knew nothing of the
baby, it was hardly likely that she had any correspondence with the
mother. He was puzzled, and more than once he felt inclined to let her
into the secret, or at least drop some hint that might lead to its
discovery.

It pleased him to imagine her delight over Edith's child, her pride in,
and devotion to it; she would never rest till she had it under her
care, and ousted Mrs Gray from all share in little Zoe. And yet,
whenever he had got so far in his inclination to tell Jane, some proof
of her absorption in that baby at Stokeley, for whom he had a sort of
jealous dislike, threw him back upon himself, and made him doubt her
affection for her young mistress, and resolve to keep the secret to
himself, at any rate for the present.

He came the nearest telling her one day in August, when, as he was
watering his flowers in the evening, Mrs Gray passed the gate with that
very little Zoe, who was so constantly in his thoughts.

She had a little white sun-bonnet on, which Jane Sands had actually
bestowed upon her--rather grudgingly, it is true, and only because
there was