I deserved it, and I said I would certainly kill
him if he did."

"And then?"

"He told me to go away and think it over. Said he would preach about
it next Sunday.... Well, a swishing isn't a likely thing anyhow. But
I would.... There isn't a master here I'd stand a thrashing from--not
one.... And because I choose to say what I think!... I'd run amuck."

For a week or so the school was exhilarated by a vain and ill-concealed
hope that the head might try it just to see if Benham would. It was
tantalizingly within the bounds of possibility....

These incidents came back to White's mind as he turned over the
newspapers in the upper drawer of the bureau. The drawer was labelled
"Fear--the First Limitation," and the material in it was evidently
designed for the opening volume of the great unfinished book. Indeed, a
portion of it was already arranged and written up.

As White read through this manuscript he was reminded of a score of
schoolboy discussions Benham and he and Prothero had had together. Here
was the same old toughness of mind, a kind of intellectual hardihood,
that had sometimes shocked his schoolfellows. Benham had been one of
those boys who do not originate ideas very freely, but who go out to
them with a fierce sincerity. He believed and disbelieved with emphasis.
Prothero had first set him doubting, but it was Benham's own temperament
took him on to denial. His youthful atheism had been a matter for secret
consternation in White. White did not believe very much in God even
then, but this positive disbelieving frightened him. It was going
too far. There had been a terrible moment in the dormitory, during a
thunderstorm, a thunderstorm so vehement that it had awakened them
all, when Latham, the humourist and a quietly devout boy, had suddenly
challenged Benham to deny his Maker.

"NOW say you don't believe in God?"

Benham sat up in bed and repeated his negative faith, while little
Hopkins, the Bishop's son, being less certain about the accuracy of
Providence than His aim, edged as far as he could away from Benham's
cubicle and rolled his head in his bedclothes.

"And anyhow," said Benham, when it was clear that he was not to be
struck dead forthwith, "you show a poor idea of your God to think he'd
kill a schoolboy for honest doubt. Even old Roddles--"

"I can't listen to you," cried Latham the humourist, "I can't listen to
you. It's--HORRIBLE."

"Well, who began it?" asked Benham.

A flash of li