didn't Jason catch a syllable of that fervent prayer, reef, and
come home to her? Then I need not have written this history, and all
would have been well in Dreamland. But he didn't. He heard nothing
but the sibilant waters as they rushed under his keel: he thought of
nothing but the rose that was withering in the secret locker of his
cabin, and of the wound in his heart that was gaping and as fresh as
ever. So the night-winds hurried him onward, and the darkness absorbed
the outlines of the dear Dreamland coast.

Maud watched the barque while it lessened and lessened in the
distance, and the clouds blew over her, and it grew chilly and damp in
the rose-garden--as chilly and damp as though it were not the abode of
a princess who was beloved of the noblest of men. She watched the sail
till it faded suddenly beyond the headland, and between it and her
loomed the dark towers of the convent. Out on that troubled sea,
seeking the golden fleece in some remote kingdom, tossed on the
treacherous waves for her sake, in her white and radiant dreams she
beheld Jason. Yet ever between him and her, hiding the lessening
barque from the slope of the rose-garden, loomed the dark towers of
the convent.

II.

Jason and his fellows coursed the seas, scanning with eager eyes
the cloudy belt of the horizon, hopefully seeking some signs of the
Fortunate Islands, of whose indescribable beauty and untold wealth
they had heard many surmises. Day after day they pressed on between
the same blank sky and the same blank sea, but there was no token to
gladden the eyes of the watchers. Jason grew impatient at last: he had
called upon nearly all the saints in the calendar, and was growing to
be a very poor sort of a Catholic, inasmuch as he doubted the efficacy
of his prayers and the ability of saints to answer them. He didn't
realize that there might be good reasons for their not being answered
under the existing circumstances; which is a matter worthy of the
consideration of all of us.

The fact was, the Fortunate Islands were not one-half so wonderful as
had been represented; and the saints knew it well enough. Had Jason
invested there, as he purposed doing at the time of his embarkment,
he might have sunk all that he possessed--which was little enough
to float, as one would think--and then Maud might have tended her
rose-garden and carried fruit-offerings to the sweet-faced nuns
till she was gray and limping, for all Jason's fine noti