“I think I have made a startling discovery.” Clayton’s eyes shone and his manner astonished Justin. “In the material world man is the highest product of evolution, though he has not reached the highest possible state. In the spiritual world, which must be more advanced, the highest state has been reached, and he who has reached it we call God. The one best fitted to reach it of all spiritual beings has reached it, and has become absolute. Yet every spiritual being is entitled to reach that state, if he is worthy, each in turn. Being infinite, God could prevent that, and occupy the throne forever. The common belief is that he does so occupy it. But, being just, as well as infinite, he abdicates—suicides, if I may use the word without irreverence—so that another spirit, becoming perfect through ages of development, may take the throne; and when he does so we have what is popularly conceived of as ‘the end of the world’—the universe goes back in the twinkling of an eye to fire-mist and chaos, and all tilings begin over again. That is the great day of fire, when all things are consumed; the day of which the Revelator wrote when he said, ‘And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together.’” There was something in Clayton’s eyes which Justin had never seen before, and which he did not like; it forced him to combat Clayton’s astonishing views. “But the logic of the situation compels that belief,” Clayton insisted. “Then I refuse to accept the premises.” “But you can’t!” His earnestness grew. “See here!” He read over some of the things he had written. “It comes to that, and there is no way of getting round it.” “I get round it by refusing to believe any of it.” “And Justin!” The dark eyes shone with a still brighter light. “I put the question to you:—If God, the Infinite, may commit suicide for a good reason, why may not a man? I put it to you.” Seeing the black thought which lay back of these words Justin began to reason with Clayton, combating the idea with all the vigor and eloquence at his command, and years of training under Clayton had made him a good reasoner. But he could not break the chain of false logic which Clayton had forged, or at least he could not make Clayton see that it was broken, though he talked long and earnestly. Justin passed an uneasy night, waking at intervals with a nervous start, and listening for something, he hardly knew what. Once, hearing Clayton stirring, he sat up in bed, shivering, ready to leap out and force his way into Clayton’s room, if it seemed necessary. He was alarmed, and he thought he had ground for his alarm. The coming of Sibyl to the valley he charged with being responsible for Clayton’s strange and changed manner. Sibyl’s malevolent influence seemed to lie over everything that came near her, like the blight of the fabled upas.