One day it became known that Sibyl Dudley had visited Paradise Valley and was stopping in the town. She had ridden out to call on Mary Jasper.

Justin carried the unpleasant news to Clayton.

“I hope I shan’t see her,” said Clayton, nervously. He had received the news in his study, where he had been writing. Now he laid down his pen. “I hope it isn’t her intention to call here. But tell me about it; why has she visited Mary?”

“That I don’t know. Lucy saw her as she left Jasper’s. She will find out for me.”

“And Mary? I haven’t heard about her for some time.”

“She is very much changed. You would hardly know her. She was in bed nearly a month after Ben’s death. But I’ve thought she looked better lately.”

“Youth is strong,” said Clayton; “it can survive much. But I am surprised that Mrs. Dudley has called there.”

When Justin had nothing further to communicate Clayton turned again to his writing. But that night he called Justin into his study, a place in which Justin had passed many pleasant hours. Clayton was hollow-cheeked and nervous. The news of the coming of Sibyl to Paradise Valley had not been without its evil effect.

“You are well, Justin?” he inquired solicitously.

“Quite well,” said Justin, with some show of surprise.

“I hoped so; but things have gone so wrong here lately that I worry about every one.”

He took up some sheets of paper on which he had been writing.

“In our latest talk I was telling you something about the new views I have worked out concerning spiritual matters. I told you I had come to the conclusion that the laws which apply to the material world apply also to the spiritual world. In the material world we have the law of evolution. We do not know how life begins, but we know how it develops. Applying this to the spiritual world, we may say that though we cannot know how spiritual life begins it must develop after it begins. And development implies different grades or orders of beings; name them angels, or what you will.”

“You know I said I wasn’t able to agree with you about all those things,” Justin reminded, gently.

“That doesn’t matter; it is nothing to me who believes or disbelieves. Whatever is truth is truth, if it is never accepted by any one. I simply work out these results for my own satisfaction, and I like to talk them over with you.”

Justin settled in his chair to listen. This new view of Clayton’s seemed strange, but it was sure to be presented in an interesting manner.

“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.

In the morning Clayton was very quiet, and even listless. He did not recur to the talk of the previous evening, though Justin momentarily expected him to, and was forging more arguments to combat this new and distressing theory which had wormed its way into Clayton’s troubled mind. During the day, when there were so many things to hold his attention, Clayton was not likely to give so much thought to Sibyl and his new conclusions; he had a number of patients, including Davison, who demanded his attention, and as a physician he threw himself into his work without reserve or thought of himself. Therefore, Justin felt easier when Clayton saddled his horse and rode away to visit a sick man, who was one of the newer settlers in the valley.