Suddenly, with a wrench of his hands he tore an unmounted photograph from the folded newspaper and threw it on the ground. His eyes blazed.
“I thought I should find him. One of you is David Rendell. It is not your real name. That I know. Which of you is it?”
Jimmie had sprung upon the photograph. Instinct rather than the evidence of sight told him that it was an amateur portrait of himself and Morland taken one idle afternoon in the studio by young Tony Merewether. It had hardly lain the fraction of a second on the ground but to Jimmie it seemed as if the two figures had flashed clear upon the sight of all the bystanders. He glanced quickly at Morland, who stood quite still now with stony face and averted eyes. He too had recognised the photograph, and he cursed himself for a fool for having given it to the girl. He had had it loose in his pocket; she had pleaded for it; she had no likeness of him at all. He was paying now for his imprudent folly. Like Jimmie, he feared lest others should have recognised the photograph. But he trusted again to chance. Jimmie had undertaken the unpleasant business and his wit would possibly save the situation.
Jimmie did not hesitate. A man is as God made him, heart and brain. To his impulsive imagination the photograph would be proof positive for the world that one of the two was the infamous seducer. It did not occur to him to brazen the man out, to send him about his business; wherein lies the pathos of simple-mindedness. The decisive moment had come. To Morland exposure would mean loss of career, and, as he conceived it, loss of Norma; and to the beloved woman it would mean misery and heartbreak. So he committed an heroic folly.
“Well, I am Rendell,” he said in a loud voice. “What then?”
Heedless of shocked whisperings and confused voices, among which rose a virtuously indignant “Great heavens!” from Mrs. Hardacre, he moved away quickly towards the slope, motioning Stone to follow. But Stone remained where he stood, and pointed at Jimmie with lean, outstretched finger, and lifted up his voice in crazy rhetoric, which was heard above the “Wedding March.” No one tried to stop him. It was too odd, too interesting, too dramatic.
“The world shall know the tale of your lust, and the sun shall not go down upon your iniquity. Under false promises you betrayed the sweetest flower in God's garden. Basely you taunted her in her hour of need. Murder and suicide are on your head. There is the record for all who wish to read it. Read it,” he cried, flinging the newspaper at Mrs. Hardacre's feet. “Read how she killed her newborn babe, the child of this devil, and then hanged herself.”
Jimmie came two or three steps forward.
“Stop this mad foolery,” he cried.
Stone glared at him for a fraction of a second, thrust his hand into the breast-pocket of his frock-coat, drew out a revolver, and shot him.