"Oh, thank you, darling!" I cried. "Minnie, that IS good of you. I'm
so awfully glad. For to-morrow I must be thinking of getting ready
for Canada."

"Canada!" Minnie exclaimed, alarmed. "You're not really going to
Canada! Oh, Una, you're joking! You don't mean to say you're going
out there to find him!"

I took her hand in mine, and held it up in the air above her head
solemnly.

"Dear cousin," I said, "I love you. But you must promise me this one
thing. Whatever may happen, give me your sacred word of honour
you'll never tell anybody what we've said here to-night. You'll
kill me if you do. I don't want any living soul on earth to know of
it."

I spoke so seriously, Minnie felt it was important.

"I promise you," she answered, growing suddenly far graver than her
wont. "Oh, Una, I haven't the faintest idea what you mean, but no
torture on earth shall ever wring a word of it from me!"

So I went to bed in her arms, and cried myself to sleep, thinking
with my latest breath, in a tremor of horror, that I'd found it at
last. Courtenay Ivor was the name of my father's murderer!