A candle in the wind

by Mary Imlay Taylor

Overton felt it, felt that even his efforts to shield Faunce for Diane’s sake had in some mysterious way been forestalled and stultified. He was aware, too, of Fanny’s watchful eyes, of her air of divination. Hitherto he had looked upon her as a mere child, and had never credited her with much perspicacity. Now he felt a sudden leaning toward her, a vague sympathy that made him look to her for help; but she gave him no help at all, and let him go at last with a limp handshake and a half-reproachful glance, which seemed, to his aroused perception, to express his own thought that his return was unfortunate and inopportune. Having apparently died, he had no business to come to life again, to the inconvenience and discomfiture of his friends.

As he made his way through the seminary gates and turned westward along the quiet road, he was still possessed with these conflicting impressions. He suffered, too, from a revival of the keener and more poignant feelings that had overwhelmed him when he knew that Diane was not only lost to him, but was the wife of the coward who had left him to perish. He had subdued this suffering once, he had even risen to the heights of self-sacrifice to shield her from the shame of her husband’s exposure; but it was only after he had convinced himself that there had never been any real foundation for his hopes, that Diane had never cared for him.

But now a new and amazing crisis completely reversed the situation, apparently making his sacrifice futile, for he had no reason to shield Faunce unless he did it to save the woman he loved. He recalled Diane’s face, the anguish in her eyes, her gesture that seemed to thrust him away. He had taken these things for a final dismissal, when another man might have seen in them a far more significant revelation. He began to dimly recognize it now.

Staggered as his higher moral sense was by this new turn of his thoughts, his heart leaped up at the change, as if the dark shadow of disappointment had dropped its grisly shape and become a guiding light. He felt, indeed, much like the ancient Cretan mariners when the monster that had terrified them suddenly became a star-crowned god, ready to guide their storm-tossed ship safely into port.

As Overton plodded along, however, his strongest feeling was one of sheer perplexity. It was like entering a fair garden by the way of the front gate and the sloping lawn, and suddenly losing oneself in a labyrinth.

A determination to solve the riddle drove him toward the one person who, he thought, might furnish a clue. If any one could point a way in the maze, it was Dr. Gerry; but, as Overton turned in that direction, a sudden slope in the hill gave him a wider prospect and a far glimpse of the roof and chimneys of Judge Herford’s house. He paused and looked toward it, his eye taking in the exquisite shading of the landscape, the deep blue and orange of the sky, still pulsing with the afterglow, the faint violet line of the distant hills, the nearer stretch of woodland, with here and there a blooming althea showering its pale blossoms against the green, or half veiling the red-tiled roof of some house set low in the dense growth of shrubbery.

The sweet, keen air had in it that subtle fragrance which is summer. Near at hand a robin whistled with a soft, throaty sound, sweet as Apollo’s lute. Overton let his eyes rest for a moment on the broad, slated roof that sheltered Diane. He had the keenest desire to see her again, to know the worst or the best—which was it?

Had she ceased to love Faunce and left him, shocked by some revelation of his character? Or had his own return—revealing the falsehood of his death—broken her happiness? This thought stirred him with profound emotion, and he turned and went on.

It happened to be the hour at which Dr. Gerry was usually at leisure, and in a few moments Overton found himself following the doctor’s man down the narrow hall to the study door. He remembered the place well—the old striped paper on the walls, and the two or three ancient prints in narrow black frames. They had been there when, as a boy, he had tiptoed reluctantly down the hall to have the doctor look at his tongue and administer some unpalatable dose.

Nothing that he had seen since his return had done so much to recall him to himself, to the familiar surroundings, to the people he had known from boyhood. The horrors of his experience in the antarctic, the nearness of death, and the desertion of Faunce, became unreal. He was at home again!