THE THREE VISITORS
will with it. . . . The nearness of death makes the familiar things of experience flimsy and unreal, and far more real to me now is this darkness that broods over me, as blight will sometimes overhang the world at noon, and mocks me day and night with a perpetual challenge to curse God and die. . . .
"Why do I not curse God and die? Why do I cling to my work when the God to whom I dedicated it is—silent? Because, I suppose, I still hope for some sign of reassurance. Because I am not yet altogether defeated. I would go on telling you why I want Woldingstanton to continue on its present lines and why it is impossible for you, why it will be a sort of murder for you to hand it over to Farr here, if my pain were ten times what it is. . . ."
At the mention of his name, Mr. Farr started and looked first at Mr. Dad, and then at Sir Eliphaz. "Really," he said, "really! One might think I had conspired———"
"I am afraid, Mr. Huss," said Sir Eliphaz, with a large reassuring gesture to the technical master, "that the suggestion that Mr. Farr should be your successor, came in the first instance from me."
"You must reconsider it," said Mr. Huss, moistening his lips and staring steadfastly in front of him.
Here Mr. Dad broke out in a querulous voice: "Are you really in a state, Mr. Huss, to discuss a matter like this—feverish and suffering as you are?"
"I could not be in a better frame for this discussion," said Mr. Huss. . . . "And now, for what I have to say about the school:—Woldingstanton, when I came to it, was a humdrum school of some
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