No!—­” she was shrieking now, her eyes wide open as she realised it was Spencer himself she saw leaning over her.  With a great effort she seemed to rouse herself.  “Don’t stay.  Run—­run.  Leave me.  He has a bomb that may go off at any moment.  Oh—­oh—­it is the curse of absinthe that pursues me.  Will you not go?  Vite!  Vite!”

She had almost fainted and was lapsing into French, laughing and crying alternately, telling him to go, yet clinging to him.

Spencer paid no attention to what she had said of the bomb.  But I did.  The minute was up, and Kennedy was in there yet.  I turned to rush in again to warn him at any peril.

Just then a half-conscious form staggered against me.  It was Craig himself.  He was holding the infernal machine of the five glass tubes that might at any instant blow us into eternity.

Overcome himself, he stumbled.  The sinking sensation in my heart I can never describe.  It was just a second that I waited for the terrific explosion that was to end it all for us, one long interminable second.

But it did not come.

Limp as I was with the shock, I dropped down beside him and bent over.

“A glass of water, Walter,” he murmured, “and fan me a bit.  I didn’t dare trust myself to carry the thing complete, so I emptied the acid into the sarcophagus.  I guess I must have stayed in there too long.  But we are safe.  See if you can drag out Delaverde.  He is in there by the mummy-case.”

Spencer was still holding Lucille, although she was much better in the fresh air of the hall.  “I understand,” he was muttering.  “You have been following this fiend of a husband of yours to protect the museum and myself from him.  Lucille, Lucille—­look at me.  You are mine, not his, whether he is dead or alive.  I will free you from him, from the curse of the absinthe that has pursued you.”

The fumes had cleared a great deal by this time.  In the centre of the art-gallery we found a man, a tall, black-bearded Frenchman, crazy indeed from the curse of the green absinthe that had ruined him.  He was scarcely breathing from a deadly wound in his chest.  The hair-spring ring of the Apache pistol had exploded the cartridge as he fell.

Spencer did not even look at him, as he carried his own burden down to the little office of Dr. Lith.

“When a rich man marries a girl who has been earning her own living, the newspapers always distort it,” he whispered aside to me a few minutes later.  “Jameson, you’re a newspaperman—­I depend on you to get the facts straight this time.”

Outside, Kennedy grasped my arm.

“You’ll do that, Walter?” he asked persuasively.  “Spencer is a client that one doesn’t get every day.  Just drop into the Star office and give them the straight story, I’ll promise you I’ll not take another case until you are free again to go on with me in it.”

There was no denying him.  As briefly as I could I rehearsed the main facts to the managing editor late that night.  I was too tired to write it at length, yet I could not help a feeling of satisfaction as he exclaimed, “Great stuff, Jameson,—­great.”