"I am going out, Osborn," he said, "for my evening walk. Will you come with me?" "Willingly for half an hour," answered the young officer, and, telling the landlord as he passed that he would be back by the time that his room was ready, he accompanied his eccentric acquaintance out into the streets of Hythe, and thence, through some narrow walks and lanes, to the sea-shore. CHAPTER IV. The sky was clear and bright; the moonlight was sleeping in dream-like splendour upon the water, and the small waves, thrown up by the tide more than the wind, came rippling along the beach like a flood of diamonds. All was still and silent in the sky, and upon the earth; and the soft rustle of the waters upon the shore seemed but to say "Hush!" as if nature feared that any louder sound should interrupt her calm repose. To the west, stretched out the faint low line of coast towards Dungeness; and to the east, appeared the high cliffs near Folkestone and Dover--grey and solemn; while the open heaven above looked down with its tiny stars and lustrous moon upon the wide extended sea, glittering in the silver veil cast over her sleeping bosom from on high. Such was the scene presented to the eyes of the two wanderers when they reached the beach, a little way on the Sandgate side of Hythe, and both paused to gaze upon it for several minutes in profound silence. "This is indeed a night to walk forth upon the sands," said the young officer at length. "It seems to me, that of all the many scenes from which man can derive both instruction and comfort, in the difficulties and troubles of life, there is none so elevating, so strengthening, as that presented by the sea shore on a moonlight night. To behold that mighty element, so full of destructive and of beneficial power, lying tranquilly within the bound which God affixed to it, and to remember the words, 'Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be stopped,' affords so grand an illustration of his might, so fine a proof of the truth of his promises, that the heart must be hard indeed and the mind dull, not to receive confirmation of faith, and encouragement in hope."