Yet she had not a cruel nature, and the misery she endured during the few minutes that she sat thinking of the blow that was about to fall on Dr. Grey and his family, heaping on the picture every exaggerated imagination of a mind always prone to paint things in violent colors, was enough to atone for half the wrong she had done. She started up like a guilty creature when the door opened, and Phillis entered with a letter in her hand. "Beg pardon, ma'am, I thought you were Mrs. Grey." "She is just gone up stairs--will be back directly," said Miss Gascoigne, anxious to keep up appearances to the last available moment. "Is that letter for her? Shall I give it to her?" "No, thank you, I'll give it myself; and it'll be the last that ever I will give, for it isn't my business," added Phillis, flustered and indignant, so much so that she dropped the letter on the floor. By the light of the small taper there was a mutual search for it--why mutual Miss Gascoigne best knew. It was she who picked it up, and before she had delivered it back she had clearly seen it all--handwriting, seal and tinted envelope, with the initials "E. U." on the corner. Some hidden feeling in both of them, the lady and the servant, some last remnant of pity and charity, prevented their confiding openly in one another, even if Miss Gascoigne could have condescended so far. But she knew as well as if Phillis had told, and Phillis likewise was perfectly aware she knew, that the note came from Sir Edwin Uniacke. Poor Aunt Henrietta! She was so horrified--literally horrified, that she could bear no more. She left no message--waited for nobody--but hurried back as fast as she could walk, through twilight, to her own cottage at Avonside. Chapter 14. _"Peace on Earth, and mercy mild, Sing the angels, reconciled; Over each sad warfare done, Each soul-battle lost and won._ _"He that has a victory lost May discomfit yet a host; And, it often doth befall, He who conquers loses all."_ Christian, after sitting waiting in the study for a long hour, received a message from her husband that he would not be home that night. He had to take a sudden journey of twenty miles on some urgent affairs. This was not unusual. Dr. Grey was one of those people whom all their friends come to in any emergency, and the amount of other people's business, especially painful business, which he was expected to transact, and did transact, out of pure benevolence, was incalculable. So his wife had to wait still. She submitted as to fatality, laid her head on her pillow, and fell at once into that dull, stupid sleep which mercifully comes to some people, and always came to her, in heavy trouble. She did not wake from it till late in the following morning.