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.
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