nothing seemed to go right with him; and he was never content till
he went and buried himself somewhere in the wilds of Canada.

That evening again, I sat with Minnie in my room. I was depressed
and distressed. I didn't want to cry before Minnie, but I could have
cried with good heart for sheer vexation. Of course I couldn't bear
to go showing the photograph to all the world, and letting everybody
see I'd made myself a sort of amateur detective. They would mistake
my motives so. And yet I didn't know how I was ever to find out my
man any other way. It was that or nothing. I made up my mind I would
ask Cousin Willie.

I took out the photograph, as if unintentionally, when I went to my
box, and laid it down with my curling-tongs on the table close by
Minnie. Minnie took it up abstractedly and looked at it with an
indefinite gaze.

"Why, this is the cricket-field!" she cried, as soon as she
collected her senses. "One of your father's experiments. The
earliest acmegraphs. How splendidly they come out! See, that's Sir
Everard at the bottom; and there's little Jack Hillier above; and
this on one side's Captain Brooks; and there, in front of all--well,
you know HIM anyhow, Una. Now, don't pretend you forget! That's
Courtenay Ivor!"

Her finger was on the man who stood poised ready to jump. With an
awful recoil, I drew back and suppressed a scream. It was on the tip
of my tongue to cry out, "Why, that's my father's murderer!"

But, happily, with a great effort of will I restrained myself. I saw