While the Light Lasts by Agatha Christie

Newlyweds, George and Deidre Crozier are travelling through Africa, and George suspects Deidre is thinking of her first husband, killed in that very country. From While the Light Lasts and The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories.

More about this story

In the excruciating heat of the African sun George Crozier is travelling with his new wife, Deidre. They have not been married long and George is aware his wife’s thoughts are with her first husband who was killed in this part of Africa during the war. In this hauntingly beautiful tale, Deidre is forced to confront the reality of her circumstances: “While the light lasts I shall remember, and in the darkness I shall not forget”.

First published in 1924 in Novel Magazine, this story later provided the plot for Giant’s Bread, published in 1930. Giant’s Bread was the first of Christie’s so-called romantic novels which were published under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, but really tell haunting tales of life and tragedy.

This story became the eponymous title of the last posthumous collection of Agatha Christie's short stories for the UK and Commonwealth only in 1997. It was also included in The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories in the US, which was published that same year.

It has never been adapted.