There were opiates for remorse, drugs that could lull the moral sense to sleep.

But here was a visible symbol of the degradation of sin.

Here was an ever-present sign of the ruin men brought upon their souls.
Three o'clock struck, and four, and the half-hour rang its double chime, but Dorian Gray did not stir.

He was trying to gather up the scarlet threads of life and to weave them into a pattern; to find his way through the sanguine labyrinth of passion through which he was wandering.

He did not know what to do, or what to think.