Dorian arose, thanked her, and went out. He looked about the snow-covered earth and the clouds which threatened storm. He walked on up to the road back to the town. He was benumbed, but not with cold. He went into his room, and, although it was mid-afternoon, he did not go out any more that day. He sat supinely on his bed. He paced the floor. He looked without seeing out of the window at the passing crowds. He could not think at all clearly. His whole being was in an uproar of confusion. The hours passed. Night came on with its blaze of lights in the streets. What could he do now? What should he do now? "Oh, God, help me," he prayed, "help me to order my thoughts, tell me what to do." If ever in his life Dorian had need of help from higher power, it was now. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. Dorian had not found Carlia Duke; instead, he had found something which appeared to him to be the end of all things. Had he found her dead, in her virginal purity, he could have placed her, with Mildred, safely away in his heart and his hopes; but this!... What more could he now do? That he did not take the first train home was because he was benumbed into inactivity. The young man had never before experienced such suffering of spirit. The leaden weight on his heart seemed to be crushing, not only his physical being, but his spirit also into the depths of despair. As far back in his boyhood as he could remember, he had been taught the enormity of sexual sin, until it had become second nature for him to think of it as something very improbable, if not impossible, as pertaining to himself. And yet, here it was, right at the very door of his heart, casting its evil shadow into the most sacred precincts of his being. He had never imagined it coming to any of his near and dear ones, especially not to Carlia--Carlia, his neighbor, his chummy companion in fields and highways, his schoolmate. He pictured her in many of her wild adventures as a child, and in her softer moods as a grown-up girl. He saw again her dark eyes flash with anger, and then her pearly teeth gleam in laughter at him. He remembered how she used to run from him, and then at other times how she would cling to him as if she pleaded for a protection which he had not given. The weak had reached out to the strong, and the stronger one had failed. If 'remorse of conscience' is hell, Dorian tasted of its bitter depths, for it came to him now that perhaps because of his neglect, Carlia had been led to her fall.