That night Jason walked in the shadow of the lofty walls and poured out his sorrowful prayers upon the winds that swept about them.  Once in his agony he beat at the massive gates, demanding in the name of God and of mercy admittance for a lost soul that had no shelter save under that roof, and no salvation away from it; but his bleeding hands made no impression upon the ponderous doors, and the silent inmates at prayer heard nothing save their own whispers, or dreamed in their cells of heaven and of peace.

So the cry of that hopeless soul rang up to the stars unanswered, and the night frowned down upon him with impenetrable darkness.

End of the tragedy of Jason’s Quest, which might easily have been a pleasant comedy if Maud had only spoken her mind in the right place.  Will women never learn—­since God has given them the same instincts with man, to love, to trust, to doubt, to hate and to make themselves at times disagreeable, even with a more complete success than men in each of these lines of dramatic business—­that God must have intended also that they should have the equal right to choose the particular object upon which they may exercise those various offices of love, trust, etc., etc.?  I shall never cease to wonder why they are persistently and stupidly silent through six thousand years, content to let their hearts wither and die within them, or surrender at last to the wretched apology for a lover who offers himself as a substitute, and is surprised at rinding himself accepted.

To be sure, it is less dramatic.  Jason might have come back and married Maud:  there would have been a pretty wedding and some delightful hours before things grew dull and commonplace, as they must have done ultimately.  That rose-garden would have come to grief when once the children got to playing in it; Jason, on some tedious afternoon, when overhauling old letters and the like, would have thrown out that withered rose (of precious memory), quite forgetful of its significance; Maud would have lost her myrtle leaf in house-cleaning.  Yet what were the odds?  A withered rose and a myrtle leaf are scarcely worth the keeping.

You will remember how it turned out in the days of the gods:  Jason wearied of Medea and the children; Medea was disgusted with such conduct, and behaved like a savage; there was general unhappiness in the family; and I blush for my sex—­which is Jason’s—­whenever I think of it.  Now, if my Jason had married his Maud, it would have scarcely been worth noticing beyond the simple register in the Daily Dreamlander, after having been thrice published from the pulpit between the Gospel and the Creed—­“Jason to Maud.”

As Jason was not heard of after the windy night under the wall of the convent, there were many surmises concerning his disappearance.  It was thought that he had again embarked upon some voyage of discovery.  I believe he had, and it was a desperate one for him.  The other Argonauts married such maids as were left unmarried, and they did well to do so.  Some of the old sweethearts regretted their haste, and looked enviously upon the new brides of Dreamland; but most of them were satisfied with their children, and contented with such husbands as Heaven had sent them.