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.