The child was sleeping soundly, everything was quiet, the dusk was gathering thick and fast. Why should he not put the child outside some other cottage, and throw the responsibility of disposing of it on someone else, and be clear of it himself altogether? The idea shaped itself with lightning rapidity in his brain, and he passed quickly in review the different cottages in the place and their inmates, and in spite of his indifference to Martin Blake's brat, he selected one where he knew a kindly reception, at any rate for the night, would be given. He knew more about the Grays than of most of the village people. Bill was a favourite of his, and had been with him that afternoon after school to fetch a book Mr Robins had promised to lend him. He was a bright, intelligent boy, and had a sweet voice, and the organist found him a more apt pupil than any of the others, and had taken some pains with him, and when he was ill the winter before had been to see him, and so had come to know his mother, and her liking for anything young and weak and tender. Their cottage was at some distance, to be sure, and Mr Robins had not had much to do with babies of late years, and was a little distrustful of his ability to carry one so far without rousing it and so proclaiming its presence, but there was a path across the fields but little frequented, by which he could convey the child without much risk of being met and observed. And now the great thing to aim at was to carry out his plan as quickly as possible, before any one was aware of the child being at his house; and he gathered up the little warm bundle as gingerly as he knew how, and was on his way to the gate, when the sound of approaching steps along the road made him draw back and, unlocking the door, carry the child in. The steps stopped at the gate and turned in, and one of the choirmen came to the door. There were little movements and soft grumblings inside the shawl in the organist's arms, and he turned quite cold with apprehension. 'Anyone at home?' sounded Millet's jovial voice at the open door. ''Evening, Mr Robins--are you there? All in the dark, eh? I wanted a couple of words with you about that song.' 'I 'll come directly,' sounded the organist's voice, with a curious jogging effect in it, such as Millet was used to sometimes in his conversations with his wife at the children's bed-time. And then Millet heard him go up-stairs, and it was some minutes before he came down again, and then in such a queer absent condition that if it had been any other man in the parish than Mr Robins, whose sobriety was unimpeachable, Millet would have said that he had had a drop too much. He did not ask him in or strike a light, but stood at the door answering quite at haphazard, and showing such indifference on the vital question of a certain song suiting Millet's voice, that that usually good-natured man was almost offended.