Morland pocketed the unmounted print. He tried to utter a word of thanks, but the eyes of the scared and scandalised crowd a few steps away were upon them, and many were listening. For a moment during the madman's crazy indictment of Jimmie--for the horrible facts were only too true--he had had the generous impulse to come forward and at all costs save his friend; but he had hesitated. The shot had been fired. The dramatic little scene had followed. To proclaim Jimmie's innocence and his own guilt now would be an anticlimax. It was too late. He would take another opportunity of exonerating Jimmie. So he stood helpless before him, and Jimmie, feeling fainter and fainter, protested that he was not hurt. They stood a bit apart from the rest. By this time men and women had flocked from all quarters, and practically the whole party had assembled on the tennis lawn. Norma still stood with Connie on the terrace, her hand on her heart. A small group clustered round a man who had picked up the newspaper and was reading aloud the ghastly paragraph marked by Stone in blue pencil. The Hardacres were wringing their hands before a stony-faced princess and an indignant duchess, who announced their intention of immediate departure. Every one told every one else the facts he or she had managed to gather. Human nature and the morbidly stimulated imagination of naturally unimaginative people invented atrocious details. Jimmie's new-born fame as a painter was quickly merged into hideous notoriety. His star must have been Lucifer, so swift was its fall. Mr. Hardacre left his wife's side, and dragged Morland a step or two away, and whispered excitedly: “What a scandal! What a hell of a scandal! Before royalty, too. It will be the death of us. The damned fellow must go. You must clear him out of the house!” “He's hit. Look at him,” exclaimed Morland. Jimmie heard his host's whisper in a dream. It seemed a hoarse voice very, very far off. He laughed in an idiotic way, waved his hand to the gyrating crowd, and stumbled a few yards towards the slope. The world swam into darkness and he fell heavily on his face. Then, to the amazement of the county, Norma with a ringing cry rushed down the slope, and threw herself beside Jimmie's body and put his head on her lap. And there she stayed until they dragged her away, uttering the queer whimpering exclamations of a woman suddenly stricken with great terror. She thought Jimmie was dead. Chapter XV--MRS. HARDACRE LAUGHS