For a moment, a sort of ecstasy seemed to possess this world-wearied Wanderer, and all the moonlit scene to assume an aspect altogether strange, such as earth and sea, however beautiful, can only shew to the pure and hopeful; then a sharp thought pierced his brain. She might have been alive when she caused that window to be set up, and yet not now. He knew that those gorgeous dyes kept their bright colours for many a year undimmed: supposing that he allowed five years (in which, by the by, Ralph was very near the truth) as a reasonable time to have elapsed between the shipwreck and the time that this memorial was erected--and in less time, how was it possible she could have saved the money for such a purpose--that would still leave more than a quarter of a century between its erection and the present time. A quarter of a century! a generation of human life! Time enough to die, to marry--but no, his Lucy would never have done that. This window, shewing so tender a regard after such a lapse of years, was evidence in some sort to the contrary; and since he himself had never forgotten _her_, and only now, after a lonely lifetime, was meditating another marriage, he felt no apprehension upon that score. No; if his Lucy was alive, she was still his, and free to welcome him as of old to her loving arms. The only question with which he had now any real concern was, whether she still lived? Henceforward, it would be his sole business in the world to find this matter out. And first, she must certainly have been washed ashore alive; and somewhere in these parts. Who, then, so fit to give him information upon that point as old Jacob Forest, who had lived at Coveton all his life, and at that time, in the very cottage on the beach where his nephew now resided? So Ralph Derrick (for, like everybody else, we may still continue to call him so) took the path that he had originally intended to take after all, notwithstanding his marvellous discovery, and made straight for Jacob's dwelling on the hill; no longer with the intention of winning a bride, but of recovering a long-lost wife. CHAPTER VI. JACOB'S GUARD-SHIP.