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.
A great dread, like a great joy, always lies in ambush, ready to leap upon us the instant we open our eyes.