CHAPTER XXIV.
James Rutlidge Makes a Mistake When Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange had said, "good-by," to their friends, at Sibyl Andres' home, that evening; and had returned to spend their last night at the camp in the sycamores; the girl's mood was again the mood of one oppressed by a haunting, foreboding fear.
Sibyl could not have expressed, or even to herself defined, her fear.

She only knew that in the presence of James Rutlidge she was frightened.

She had tried many times to overcome her strange antipathy; for Rutlidge, until that day in the studio, had never been other than kind and courteous in his persistent efforts to win her friendship.

Perhaps it was the impression left by the memory of Myra Willard's manner at the time of their first meeting with him, three years before, in Brian Oakley's home; perhaps it was because the woman with the disfigured face had so often warned her against permitting her slight acquaintance with Rutlidge to develop; perhaps it was something else--some instinct, possible, only, to one of her pure, unspoiled nature--whatever it was, the mountain girl who was so naturally unafraid, feared this man who, in his own world, was an acknowledged authority upon matters of the highest spiritual and moral significance.
That night, she slept but little.

With the morning, every nerve demanded action, action.