bols she had written; the rest had obviously given
up the effort to understand the complicated formula. In fact, they did
not seem to notice that she had stopped her lecture.

For a few moments she looked about and mused. With one or two
exceptions, she liked her pupils, and had led them patiently along the
uphill road to knowledge. They had made some progress, but she had lost
her delight in leading. For one thing, few would go far, and when they
left her the rest would turn aside from the laborious pursuit of science
into pleasant human paths and forget all that she had taught while they
occupied themselves with the care of husband and children. Moreover, she
herself could not follow the climbing road to the heights where the
light of knowledge burns brightest, as she once had hoped. When the
school term was finished she must turn back and begin again, at the
bottom, to direct the faltering steps of another band. But she
sometimes wondered whether the beckoning light was not austere and cold.

She glanced at her dress. It was a neutral color and like a uniform.
After all, she had physical charm and it was sometimes irksome to wear
unbecoming clothes. Then the lofty room, with its varnished desks and
benches, looked bleak; her life was passed in bare class-rooms and
echoing stone corridors. This would not have mattered had she been able
to follow her bent and take the line she had once marked out; but she
could not. She must give up the thought of independent research and
teach for a living, cramping her talents to meet her pupils'
intelligence, until, in time, she sank to their level.

She roused herself with an effort and mechanically resumed her lecture,
for her wandering thoughts now dwelt upon the foaming rivers and cool
forests of the North. The class-rooms smelt of varnish and throbbed with
the monotonous rattle of the fan; in the wilds one breathed the resinous
fragrance of the pines and heard the splash of running water. For all
that, she must not shirk her duty and she tried to make the meaning of
the symbols on the board plainer to the languid girls.

By and by she remarked that they were more alert. Some were making
notes, and one or two looked past her with frank curiosity. The door was
behind the board, and Agatha had heard nobody come in, but when she
looked round she saw a gray-haired gentleman standing near the lady
principal. He seemed to be listening to what she said and she thought
his eyes twink