But Carlia was in Dorian’s thought very often, much to his bewilderment of heart and mind.  He often debated with himself if he should not definitely give her up, cease thinking about her as being anything to him either now or hereafter; but it seemed impossible to do that.  Carlia’s image persisted even as Mildred’s did.  Mildred, away from the entanglements of the world, was safe to him; but Carlia had her life to live and the trials and difficulties of mortality to encounter and to overcome; and that would not be easy, with her beauty and her impulsive nature.  She needed a man’s clear head and steady hand to help her, and who was more fitting to do that than he himself, Dorian thought without conscious egotism.

If it were possible, Dorian always spent Sunday at home.  If he was on his dry farm in the hills, he drove down on Saturday evenings.  One Saturday in midsummer, he arrived home late and tired.  He put up his team, came in, washed, and was ready for the good supper which his mother always had for him.  The mother busied herself about the kitchen and the table.

“Come and sit down, mother,” urged Dorian.

“What’s the fussing about!  Everything I need is here on the table.  You’re tired, I see.  Come, sit down with me and tell me all the news.”

“The news? what news!”

“Why, everything that’s happened in Green street for the past week.  I haven’t had a visitor up on the farm for ten days.”

“Everything is growing splendidly down here.  The water in the canal is holding out fine and Brother Larsen is fast learning to be a farmer.”

“Good,” said Dorian.  “Our dry wheat is in most places two feet high, and it will go from forty to fifty bushels, with good luck.  If now, the price of wheat doesn’t sag too much.”

Dorian finished his supper, and was about to go to bed, being in need of a good rest.  His mother told him not to get up in the morning until she called him.

“All right, mother,” he laughed as he kissed her good night, “but don’t let me be late to Sunday School, as I have a topic to treat in the Theological class.  By heck, they really think I’m Uncle Zed’s successor, by the subjects they give me.”

He was about to go to his room when his mother called him by name.

“Yes, mother, what is it?”

“You’ll know tomorrow, so I might as well tell you now.”

“Tell me what?”

“Some bad news.”

“Bad news!  What is it?”

The mother seemed lothe to go on.  She hesitated.

“Well, mother?”

“Carlia is gone.”

“Gone?  Gone where?”

“Nobody knows.  She’s been missing for a week.  She left home last Saturday to spend a few days with a friend in the city, so she said.  Yesterday her father called at the place to bring her home and learned that she had never been there.”

“My gracious, mother!”

“Yes; it’s terrible.  Her father has inquired for her and looked for her everywhere he could think of, but not a trace of her can he find.  She’s gone.”