A Candle in the Wind by Mary Imlay Taylor

DIANE awoke the next morning with a sensation that was so new to her that it seemed almost unreal. She felt at peace -- at peace with herself and with the world. She was willing now to accept her share of the public disgrace, even her share of the unpleasant notoriety that was sure to come to Faunce. It was the price of his redemption, it was the earnest of his return to the semblance that she had loved, and she was willing to pay it. She was willing to face any sacrifice that meant that her husband, the man she loved, had completed his atonement, that he had had the supreme courage to tell the truth and bear his punishment.

As she lay there -- unaware that it was late and that she had overslept -- she thought of him with a new and beautiful tenderness. She had left him, she had treated him with scorn and cruelty, and he had borne no ill will toward her, he had continued to love and to trust her. Whether she had deserved it or not, he had trusted her! In their long talk the night before, in that moment when she had told him her secret, that the dawn of a deeper love in her heart had revealed the truth to her -- that the bond between them was too strong for her to break -- he had not failed her. It had seemed to her that his joy and his relief at the assurance of her love had crystallized into a sterner purpose, a resolution to wrest something still from the exigencies of his confession, to rise above it and, for her sake, and the sake of the child who was yet unborn -- to reclaim his life, to win back the laurels he had lost, to come back to her, indeed, in the semblance that she had loved. She had seen the purpose rise in him, it had shone in his pale face and his kindling eyes, she had heard it in his voice, although he had given it no form in words. It was as if she had seen the soul of the man rise -- at the call of her love and her faith -- from the ashes of his despair.