“So are we all, Pixie, but you can end the misery if you will only tell us truthfully all you know about this accident. You do know something, I feel certain, or why should you be so afraid to speak? It’s no use being afraid, dear. We all have to do difficult things sometimes, whether we like them or not, and it will only get worse as time goes on. The truth is bound to come out, and then how ashamed you will feel, if you have not taken the opportunity while it was yours!”
“Do you think it will be found out, really?” Pixie shivered, and twisted her fingers together in nervous fashion. “But how can it if I don’t tell, and if—if there is no one else?”
“I don’t know, Pixie, but I believe it will, sooner or later. It may be later, for God is very patient, and waits to give us our chance before He takes things into His own hands. In the days when Jesus was on earth He used to work miracles, but He doesn’t do that any longer. I used to be sorry for that, but I am not now, for it is so wonderful that He lets us help Him by putting it into our hearts to do His will. He won’t show us in any miraculous way who is deceiving us now, but if she will listen He will speak to her, and make it seem impossible to go on doing wrong.”
“That’s what Bridgie said!” agreed Pixie eagerly. “It was the night before I came to school, and she was speaking to me for my good. ‘You’ll be far away from home,’ she said, ‘but you never need be far from Him, and He is your best friend. When you are happy and everything is bright, thank Him for it, for it’s a shame to be always asking, asking, and never saying a “Thank you” for what you receive. And when you are undecided between two ways, take the one that’s hardest, for that was what He meant by bearing the cross; and when you are in trouble, keep still,’ she says, ‘keep still, and you’ll hear His voice in your heart.’ And I was thinking of that last night, and I could hear Bridgie saying it all over again, as plain as if she were by my side!”
“And the other voice, Pixie—did you hear that too?”
“I tried to, but,”—the small troubled face was pitiful to behold—“it seemed always to say the things I wanted, and I was afraid I was imagining. Then I remembered about doing the hardest thing, and every time I awoke I thought of it again, and this morning I decided that I would!”
“Pixie!” cried Margaret, in a tone of almost incredulous relief. “Oh, Pixie, you will really! I am so glad, so glad! You will come with me to Miss Phipps now, and tell all you know!”
But Pixie shook her head firmly, and her lips closed in determined lines.
“I will never tell,” she said. “I’ll be silent for ever!”