“All right.”

“Now, my dear, you feel able to go down and have some supper.  Your father and mother should be told the news, and perhaps I can do that better than anybody else.  I’ll go with you, and, if your mother has something good for supper, I’ll stay.”

But the girl did not respond to his light speech.  She sat very still by the window.  For a long, long time—­ages it seemed to her, she had suffered in silent agony for her sin, feeling as if she were being smothered by her guilty secret.  She could not bring herself to tell it even to her mother.  How could she tell it to anyone eke, certainly not Dorian.  And yet, as she sat there with him she felt as if she might confide in him.  He would listen without anger or reproach.  He would forgive.  He—­her heart soared, but her brain came back with a jolt to her daily thinking again.  No, no, he must not know, he must never know; for if he knew, then all would surely be over between them, and then, she might as well die and be done with it!

“Come, Carlia.”

She did not even hear him.

But Dorian must know, he must know the truth before he asked her again to marry him.  But if he knew, he would never urge that again.  That perhaps would be for the best, anyway.  And yet she could not bear the thought of sending him away for good.  If he deserted her, who else would she have?  No; she must have him near her, at least.  Clear thinking was not easy for her just then, but in time she managed to say: 

“Dorian, sit down....  Do you remember that evening, not so long ago, when you let me ‘browse’, as you called it, among Uncle Zed’s books and manuscripts?”

“Yes; you have done that a number of times.”

“But there is one time which I shall remember.  It was the time when I read what Uncle Zed had written about sin and death.”

“O, I had not intended you to see that.”

“But I did, and I read carefully every word of it.  I understood most of it, too.  ’The wages of sin is death’—­That applies to me.  I am a sinner.  I shall die.  I have already died, according to Uncle Zed.”

“No, Carlia, you misapply that.  We are all sinners, and we all die in proportion to our sinning.  That’s true enough; but there is also the blessed privilege of repentance to consider.  Let me finish the quotation:  ’The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord’; also let me add what the Lord said about those who truly repent; ’Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool’.  That is a great comfort to all of us, Carlia.”

“Yes; thank you, Dorian.... but—­but now I must tell you.  The Lord may forgive me, but you cannot.”

“Carlia, I have long since forgiven you.”

“Oh, of my little foolish ways, of course; but, Dorian, you don’t know—­”

“But, Carlia, I do know.  And I tell you that I have forgiven you.”