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