And now drew near the full power, the culmination of the mounting enchantment, of the night for Malcolm. When once the Scaurnose people should have passed them, they would be alone--alone as in the spaces between the stars. There would not be a living soul on the shore for hours. From the harbor the nearest way to the House was by the sea-gate, but where was the haste with the lovely night around them, private as a dream shared only by two? Besides, to get in by that they would have had to rouse the cantankerous Bykes, and what a jar would not that bring into the music of the silence! Instead, therefore, of turning up by the side of the stream where it crossed the shore, he took Clementina once again in his arms unforbidden and carried her over. Then the long sands lay open to their feet. Presently they heard the Scaurnose party behind them, coming audibly, merrily on. As by a common resolve they turned to the left, and crossing the end of the Boar's Tail, resumed their former direction, with the dune now between them and the sea. The voices passed on the other side, and they heard them slowly merge into the inaudible. At length, after an interval of silence, on the westerly air came one quiver of laughter, by which Malcolm knew his friends were winding up the red path to the top of the cliff. And now the shore was bare of presence, bare of sound save the soft fitful rush of the rising tide. But behind the long sandhill, for all they could see of the sea, they might have been in the heart of a continent. "Who would imagine the ocean so near us, my lady?" said Malcolm after they had walked for some time without word spoken. "Who can tell what may be near us?" she returned. "True, my lady. Our future is near us, holding thousands of things unknown. Hosts of thinking beings with endless myriads of thoughts may be around us. What a joy to know that, of all things and all thoughts, God is nearest to us--so near that we cannot see Him, but, far beyond seeing Him, can know of Him infinitely!" As he spoke they came opposite the tunnel, but he turned from it and they ascended the dune. As their heads rose over the top, and the sky-night above and the sea-night beneath rolled themselves out and rushed silently together, Malcolm said, as if thinking aloud, "Thus shall we meet death and the unknown, and the new that breaks from the bosom of the invisible will be better than the old upon which the gates close behind us. The Son of man is content with my future, and I am content."