* * * * *

The most charitable construction that can be put upon the action of James Rutlidge, just related, is to accept the explanation of his conduct that he, himself made to Sibyl.  The man was insane—­as Mr. Taine was insane—­as Mrs. Taine was insane.

What else can be said of a class of people who, in an age wedded to materialism, demand of their artists not that they shall set before them ideals of truth and purity and beauty, but that they shall feed their diseased minds with thoughts of lust and stimulate their abnormal passions with lascivious imaginings?  Can a class—­whatever its pretense to culture may be—­can a class, that, in story and picture and music and play, counts greatest in art those who most effectively arouse the basest passions of which the human being is capable, be rightly judged sane?

James Rutlidge was bred, born, and reared in an atmosphere that does not tolerate purity of thought.  It was literally impossible for him to think sanely of the holiest, most sacred, most fundamental facts of life.  Education, culture, art, literature,—­all that is commonly supposed to lift man above the level of the beasts,—­are used by men and women of his kind to so pervert their own natures that they are able to descend to bestial depths that the dumb animals themselves are not capable of reaching.  In what he called his love for Sibyl Andres, James Rutlidge was insane—­but no more so than thousands of others.  The methods of securing the objects of their desires vary—­the motive that prompts is the same—­the end sought is identical.

As he hurriedly climbed the mountainside, out of the deep gorge that hid the cabin, the man’s mind was in a whirl of emotions—­rage at being interrupted at the moment of his triumph; dread lest the approaching one should be accompanied by others, and the girl be taken from him; fear that the convict would prove troublesome, even should the more immediate danger be averted; anger at himself for being so blindly precipitous; and a maddening indecision as to how he should check the man who was following the tracks that led from Granite Peak to the evident object of his search.  The words of the convict rang in his ears.  “This is your job.  I did not agree to commit murder for you.”

Murder had no place in the insanity of James Rutlidge To destroy innocence, to kill virtue, to murder a soul—­these are commonplaces in the insane philosophy of his kind.  But to kill—­to take a life deliberately—­the thought was abhorrent to him.  He was not educated to the thought of taking life—­he was trained to consider its perversion.  The heroes in his fiction did not kill men—­they betrayed women.  The heroines in his stories did not desire the death of their betrayers—­they loved them, and deserted their husbands for them.

But to stand idly aside and permit Sibyl Andres to be taken from him—­to face the exposure that would inevitably follow—­was impossible.  If the man who had struck the trail was alone, there might still be a chance—­if he could be stopped.  But how could he check him?  What could he do?  A rifle-shot might bring a dozen searchers.