CHAPTER III. Something on the Doorstep--Bill Gray--Is That a Cat?--She's Like Mother--A Baby's Shoe--Jane Restless But the annoyance for which Mr Robins had been preparing himself was not repeated; the persecution, if such had been intended, was not continued. As the days passed by he began to leave off listening and lying awake; he came out from his house or from the church without furtive glances of expectation to the right and left; he lost that constant feeling of apprehension and the necessity to nerve himself for resistance. He had never been one to gossip or concern himself with other people's matters, and Jane Sands had never brought the news of the place to amuse her master, as many in her place would have done; so now he had no way of knowing if his daughter's return had been known in the place, or what comments the neighbours passed on it. He fancied that Jane looked a little more anxious than usual; but then her sister was lying ill at Stokeley, and she was often there with her, so that accounted for her anxiety. It accounted, too, for her being away one evening a fortnight later, when Mr Robins coming in in the dusk found something laid on his doorstep. His thoughts had been otherwise occupied, but the moment his eyes fell on the shepherd's-plaid shawl wrapping the bundle at his feet, he knew what it was, and recognised a renewed attempt to coerce him into doing what he had vowed he would not. He saw it all in a minute, and understood that now Jane Sands was in the plot against him, and she had devised this way of putting the child in his path because she was afraid to come to him openly and say what she wanted. Perhaps even now she was watching, expecting to see him fall into the trap they had set for him; but they should find they were very much mistaken. His first resolution was to fetch the police constable and get him to take the child right off to the workhouse, but on second thoughts he altered his purpose. Such a step would set all the tongues in the place wagging, and, little as he cared for public opinion, it would not be pleasant for every one to be telling how he had sent his grandchild to the workhouse. Grandchild? pshaw! it was Martin Blake's brat.