A candle in the wind

by Mary Imlay Taylor

The dean was skeptical.

“I’ve lived a long time, Julia,” he remarked dryly, “and I’ve never known a young man to die of grief for his friend—or to lose his reason, either.”

“Oh, Edward, you remember what is said about ‘greater love’?”

“Julia, Faunce didn’t lay down his life for his friend, and”—the dean put out the light with a jerk, and his wife heard a decisive note in his voice, as if his idea had gained momentum in the darkness—“I don’t believe he’s got the courage to, either!”

“Edward!” she exclaimed with indignation.

The dean, however, refused to modify his opinion, and cut short the conversation by promptly falling asleep.

Dr. Price had not been the only one to observe these nocturnal wanderings of Arthur Faunce. They began to appear in certain vague rumors that were afloat on the countryside. Two or three other belated wayfarers had encountered the young explorer on his midnight rambles, and his haggard looks attracted attention. That he was not well showed in his brilliant eyes and the habitual pallor of his face, which was flushed only in moments of excitement or pleasure.

Recently he had been forced to frame excuses to Diane, who had observed the change in him, his forced gaiety, his frequent fits of abstraction. He had attributed all this to the difficulties he was encountering in his preparations for the new expedition, and he had succeeded in so far enlisting her interest in his description of his plans that her anxiety had apparently been disarmed.

He was aware, too—and the thought stung him—that Diane’s love had none of that intimate tenderness which enables one mind almost intuitively to understand the other, and one soul to feel the overshadowing of its mate. He tried to comfort himself with the assurance that it was best so, that he would not have it otherwise, since he must keep his own secrets. Yet it cost him a pang to feel that here, as everywhere else, the shade of Overton came between him and perfect happiness. Even the triumph of his successful love was chilled by the thought that in Diane’s heart he was second, and that her girlish imagination clung to the memory of the lost leader who had fallen, like the hero he was, on the road to glory.

His confession to Dr. Gerry, and the doctor’s subsequent efforts to break the chloral habit, had effected only a temporary relief. He was face to face with the shame of having laid bare his soul to another, of having disclosed the mortal secret that ground his heart, to see only contempt and condemnation in the eyes of his father confessor.