“What have I done that you should hate me?” he asked as quietly as his trembling voice would allow.

“Done? nothing.  It’s what you haven’t done.  What have you done to repay—­my—­Oh, God, I can’t stand it—­I can’t stand it!”

She walked to the wall and turned her face to it.  She did not cry.  The room was silently tense for a few moments.

“I guess I’d better go,” said Dorian.

She did not reply.  He picked up his hat, lingered, then went to the door.  She hated him.  Then let him get out from her presence.  She hated him.  He had not thought that possible.  Well, he would go.  He would never annoy any girl who hated him, not if he knew it.  How his heart ached, how his very soul seemed crushed! yet he could not appeal to her.  She stood with her face to the wall, still as a statue, and as cold.

“Good night,” he said at the door.

She said nothing, nor moved.  He could see her body quiver, but he could not see her face.  He perceived nothing clearly.  The familiar room, poorly furnished, seemed strange to him.  The big, ugly enlarged photographs on the wall blurred to his vision.  Carlia, with head bowed now, appeared to stand in the midst of utter confusion.  Dorian groped his way to the door, and stepped out into the wintry night.  When he had reached the gate, Carlia rushed to the door.

“Dorian!” she cried in a heart-breaking voice, “O, Dorian, come back—­come back!”

But Dorian opened the gate, closed it, then walked on down the road into the darkness, nor did he once look back.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Carlia’s ringing cry persisted with Dorian all the way home, but he hardened his heart and went steadily on.  His mother had gone to bed, and he sat for a time by the dying fire, thinking of what he had just passed through.

After that, Dorian kept away from Carlia.  Although the longing to see her surged strongly through his heart from time to time, and he could not get away from the thought that she was in some trouble, yet his pride forbade him to intrude.  He busied himself with chores and his books, and he did not relax in his ward duties.  Once in a while he saw Carlia at the meeting house, but she absented herself more and more from public gatherings, giving as an excuse to all who inquired, that her work bound her more closely than ever at home.

Dorian and his mother frequently talked about Uncle Zed and the hopes the departed one had of the young man.  “Do you really think, mother, that he meant I should devote my life to the harmonizing of science and religion?” he asked.

“I think Uncle Zed was in earnest.  He had great faith in you.”

“But what do you think of it, mother?”

After a moment’s thought, the mother replied.

“What do you think of it?”

“Well, it would be a task, though a wonderfully great one.”