d. It was this very unreasoning element in her emotions that made her
always so embarrassed in the man's presence. It was because she did not
understand her fear of him, that the girl, usually so capable of taking
her own part, was, in his presence, so helpless.

James Rutlidge, by the intellectual, moral, and physical atmosphere in
which he lived, was made wholly incapable of understanding the nature of
Sibyl Andres. Secure in the convictions of his own debased mind, as to her
relation to the artist; and misconstruing her very manner in his presence;
he was not long in putting his proposal into words that she could not fail
to understand.

When she _did_ grasp his meaning, her fears and her trembling nervousness
gave place to courageous indignation and righteous anger that found
expression in scathing words of denunciation.

The man, still, could not understand the truth of the situation. To him,
there was nothing more in her refusal than her preference for the artist.
That this young woman--to him, an unschooled girl of the hills--whom he
had so long marked as his own, should give herself to another, and so
scornfully turn from him, was an affront that he could not brook. The very
vigor of her wrath, as she stood before him,--her eyes bright, her cheeks
flushed, and her beautiful body quivering with the vehemence of her
passionate outburst,--only served to fan the flame of his desire; while
her stinging words provoked his bestial mind to an animal-like rage. With
a muttered oath and a threat, he started toward her.

But the woman who faced him now, with full understanding, was very
different from the timid, frightened girl who had not at first understood.
With a business-like movement that was the result of Brian Oakley's
careful training, her hand dropped to her hip and was raised again.

James Rutlidge stopped, as though against an iron bar. In the blue eyes
that looked at him, now, over the dark barrel of the revolver, he read no
uncertainty of purpose. The small hand that had drawn the weapon with such
ready swiftness, was as steady as though at target practice.
Instinctively, the man half turned, throwing up his arm as if to shield
his face from a menacing blow. "For God's sake," he gasped, "put that
down."

In truth, James Rutlidge was nearer death, at that instant, than he had
ever been before.

Drawing back a few fearful paces, his hands still uplifted, he said again,
"Put it down, I tell you. Don't you