Over the course of several months, you observe a Cepheid variable star in the Milky Way. You determine that its luminosity varies with a period of 18.9 days, and you measure a V-band apparent magnitude mV = 9.7. Normally this would be enough information to determine the Cepheid's distance using
MV = -3.175 log P - 0.850
where P is period/days. However, there is a cloud of dust along the line of sight with an extinction coefficient of 1.2. Find the distance to the Cepheid and the absorption coefficient of the cloud, which you may assume is uniform and has a linear depth of 220 pc (diameter).