"Ah me, the gods are cruel!" she sobbed. "They have planted the seed of love within my heart, and now they would have me tear it out. Hard is a woman's lot. In bitterness of soul she sits within, whilst out in the great world men fight for her beauty, as though she were some painted image or lifeless weight of gold. On the slipping of a foot or the cast of a die her fate may rest for weal or woe, and the happiness of her life hang upon the issue of a moment." Then she felt in her bosom for the lock of the Golden Fleece which Admetus had given her, and drew it forth and kissed it. "Alas, he has forgotten me! He is a great king now, and thinks no more of the maiden in whose eyes he looked when he first came back from his voyage." Sadly she put the lock back in her bosom, and turned and went down the turret-stair. It was close upon the hour when all the suitors were to be feasted in the great hall, and with her sisters she was to sing the pæan song at the pouring of the third libation. Full often had she sung it in her father's halls; for only unwedded maidens, pure and innocent of soul, might sing it, and ask for blessings on their home and kindred, and return thanks to great Zeus, the saviour, for the gladness of a well-filled board and the happy faces of friends and kinsfolk round the hearth. Her heart was heavy within her when she thought that now for the last time this task would be hers, and that only one more sun would set before she would be far away in a strange land, the wife of a man whose very name she knew not yet. Her one hope lay in the words of the prophet and the will of her father, that she should wed that man only who could come to bear her away in a chariot drawn by a lion and a boar; and from the depths of her soul she prayed that all might find the task impossible. "Better to die a maiden," she thought, "than to be the prize of a man I do not love." As she reached the bottom of the stair she heard her sisters calling. "Alcestis, Alcestis, where art thou? The feast is wellnigh finished, and all men wait for us to sing the pæan song. Tarry no longer, but hasten and come." "I come, I come," she answered. "Yet the song of joy upon my lips will echo like a dirge through the chambers of my soul." And the sisters marvelled at her, and shook their heads. "She hath always wayward fancies," they whispered, "and is different from other folk." Their hearts were a-flutter with hope and joy, for on the morrow they would each one be wedded to a brave man, and go to a strange new land, and be queens in their own palaces. So they took no heed of her words, but tripped along the galleries with joyful feet, and took their places in the crowded hall. After them came Alcestis. Slowly, and with sad, unseeing eyes, she took her seat beside them.