Next she got water and extinguished the still smoldering powder. Then, falling on her knees, she tried to help the stricken men.
Not much time did she spend with the others, but to Locke with great tenderness she gave most of her attention. Tenderly she bathed his brow and frantically tried even to breathe her breath into his burning lungs.
Finally she was rewarded by seeing him open his eyes and gaze around. He looked up at her.
"I'll atone for all the wrong I've done," she sobbed, "only—"
She would have asked him to love her, but she knew that it was useless and the thought of Eva, caused the words to stick in her throat.
Locke did not understand, and the look on his face showed it.
"I didn't want to give you up," wailed Zita, now forgetting herself. "I loved you. To prove it—I will help you now. The—the girl you love is in terrible danger—you must hurry."
It was only too true. Eva had driven immediately to the hypnotist's, and he had been instructed about her coming. At his door she had knocked, and an old, evil-visaged man, in flowing robes which were marked in cabalistic signs, had opened the door. In true fakir fashion he salaamed almost to the floor while in flowery language he bade her enter.
Fearfully Eva stepped within. Signs of the zodiac, of cross-bones and skulls, on walls and ceiling met her gaze everywhere. In an alcove Eva could see a noosed rope hanging, for what purpose she knew not. But its presence she felt was sinister.