"She did that!"
"Then she has simply returned there," announced the collector and he settled placidly back in his chair.
But Bertram, who had been stricken temporarily dumb and paralyzed by the abrupt vanishment of his beloved "kid," gave vent to one anguished cry of grief and rage. Springing upon Drayton, he wrenched from him the newspaper packet.
"What the deuce are you doing?" exclaimed the lawyer.
"You lemme alone!" panted the burglar, backing away. "I want a dose of this dust, that's what. I'm goin' after Skidoo, I am!"
"You are not!"
Trenmore pounced on him and recovered the dangerous package. "You poor little maniac," he said. "Do you think that I rang the Red Bell in that temple for nothing? Don't you realize that the place where we were isn't anywhere now, wherever it was before?"
A moment the burglar stood cogitating this puzzling statement, his face the picture of woe. Then he sank slowly into a chair and dropped his head in his hands.
"The brightest kid!" he muttered despairingly. "The best kid and now she's nothing! Hell-beg pardon, lady, but this's fierce! I don't care what happens now!"
They all sincerely pitied him. As, however, there is no known remedy for the loss of a sweetheart who has melted into the circumambient atmosphere, and as he repulsed their sympathy with almost savage impatience, they once more turned their attention to the gray-haired collector.