He was to live at Cotenoir, and look after his estate, and
smoke his pipe, as Baron Frehlter had done, and be a good husband to his
wife, a kind father to his children. This latter part of his duty came
natural to M. Lenoble. It was not in him to be otherwise than kind to
women and children. His invalid wife praised him as a model of marital
perfection. It was Gustave who wheeled her sofa from one room to another,
Gustave who prepared her medicines, Gustave whose careful hands adjusted
curtains and _portieres_. The poor woman lived and died believing herself
the happiest of wives. She mistook kindness for love.
M. Lenoble bore his wife's demise with Christian calmness. He was sorry
that the fragile creature should have been taken so early from the
pleasant home that was hers by right, but of passionate grief, or dreary
sense of irreparable loss, there was none in that manly heart. There were
times when the widower reproached himself for this want of feeling; but
in very truth Madame Lenoble, _jeune_, had lived and died a nonentity.
Her departure left no empty place; even her children scarcely missed her.
The father was all-in-all.
Gustave had married at twenty years of age. He was twenty-nine when his
wife died. His eldest daughter, Clarice, eight; his second, Madelon,
seven; the boy, a spoilt young dog of five, not yet despatched to the
great school at Rouen.
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