ubled. She could only take refuge in generalities, which,
with a definite case before her, she felt to be a peculiarly
unsatisfactory proceeding. Yet there was nothing else to be done. It was
more than probable that Pia was in the same kind of cleft stick as
herself, and that therefore direct discussion of the matter was out of
the question.

Still stroking Pia's hand, Trix spoke slowly.

"Pia, darling, what I am going to say will sound very poor comfort, I
know. But it's this. Isn't it just possible that you could give the--the
person concerned the benefit of a doubt? Even if it seems to you that he
has acted a lie, and therefore been something of a fraud, mayn't there be
some extraordinarily good reason, behind it all, that circumstances are
preventing him from explaining? Such queer things do happen, and
sometimes people have to appear to others as frauds, when they really
aren't a bit. If you were ever really friends with the person--and you
must have been, or you wouldn't care--I'd just say to myself that I would
trust him in spite of every appearance to the contrary. Perhaps some day
you'll be most awfully sorry if you don't. And isn't it a million times
better to be even mistaken in trust where a friend is concerned, than
give way to the smallest doubt which may afterwards be proved to be a
wrong doubt?"

Pia was silent. Then she said in an oddly even voice,

"Trix do you _know_ anything?"

Trix flushed to the roots of her hair. Pia turned to look at her.

"Trix!" she said amazed.

"Pia," implored Trix, "you mustn't ask me a single question, because I
can't answer you. But do, do, trust."

Pia drew a long breath.

"Trix, you're the uncanniest little mortal that ever lived, and I can't
imagine how you could have guessed, or what exactly it is you really do
know. But I believe I am going to take your advice."

CHAPTER XXVI

AN OFFER AND A REFUSAL

Antony was working in his front garden. It was a Saturday afternoon, and
a blazingly hot one. Every now and then he paused to lean on his spade,
and look out to where the blue sea lay shining and glistening in the
sunlight.

It was amazingly blue, almost as blue as the sea depicted on the posters
of famous seaside resorts, posters in which a bare-legged child with a
bucket and spade, and the widest of wide smiles is invariably seen in the
foreground. Certainly the designers of these posters are not students of
child nature. If they were, they woul