Lackland walked slowly away from the door, along the terrace above the sea, and then more rapidly, as he came out on the rough path along the cliff. The wind blew sharply against him; the moon glittered in the sky, among a multitude of glittering stars; and he heard the sea screaming and tearing at the pebbles, as he sat down on the edge of the cliff, just before getting to Carbis Bay, and looked along the uneasy water, which quivered all over with little waves, hunching themselves up, one after another, and leaping forward, all in a white froth, as they struck upon the beach. 'They are like the lives of men,' thought Lackland; 'all that effort, a struggling onward, a getting to the journey's end: see, that wave is making for just that old tin can, and it has hit it, and the can rolls over and remains, and the wave is gone.' He drew his breath in sharply, drawing up the salt smell of the sea into his nostrils, and sat there for a long time thinking. No, he had not committed the sin against the Holy Ghost: God could still pardon him. But was it right, was it just, that God should pardon him? One after another of the hard sayings of the Old Testament came into his mind: it was clearly impossible to fulfil every one of those obligations; he could but strive towards them, and fail, and fall back on the mercy of God. At that thought something rose up in him like a pride on behalf of God, and he said to himself: 'I will never ask God to stoop in order that I may rise.' As he said the words he looked round him; the aspect of the place, which he had known all his life, seemed to change, to become dim, to become mysteriously distinct, and he saw that he was sitting where he had sat with the evil spirit in his dream. He got up hastily and went indoors.