The Lure of the North by Harold Bindloss

The class-room was very hot and a ray of dazzling sunshine quivered upon the diagrams on the yellow wall. An electric fan hummed monotonously and buzzing flies hovered about Agatha's head. Her face and hands were damp as she stood with knitted brows beside a tall blackboard, looking at the drowsy girls whom she was teaching inorganic chemistry. One or two fixed their eyes on the symbols 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.