CHAPTER II.


IN THIS WIDE WORLD I STAND ALONE.

Gustave went back to his old life, and was not much disturbed by the
grandeur of his destiny as future seigneur of Cotenoir and Beaubocage. It
sometimes occurred to him that he had a weight upon his mind; and, on
consideration, he found that the weight was Madelon Frehlter. But he
continued to carry that burden very lightly, and his easy-going student
life went on, unbroken by thoughts of the future. He sent polite messages
to the demoiselle Frehlter in his letters to Cydalise; and he received
from Cydalise much information, more graphic than interesting, upon the
subject of the family at Cotenoir; and so his days went on with pleasant
monotony. This was the brief summer of his youth; but, alas, how near at
hand was the dark and dismal winter that was to freeze this honest joyous
heart! That heart, so compassionate for all suffering, so especially
tender for all womankind, was to be attacked upon its weaker side.

It was Gustave Lenoble's habit to cross the gardens of the Luxembourg
every morning, on his way from the Rue Grande-Mademoiselle to the Ecole
de Droit. Sometimes, when he was earlier than usual, he carried a book
with him, and paced one of the more obscure alleys, reading for an odd
half-hour before he went to the daily mill-grinding in the big building
beyond those quiet gardens.

Walking with his book one morning--it was a volume of Boileau, which
the student knew by heart, and the pages whereof did not altogether
absorb his attention--he passed and repassed a bench on which a lady
sat, pensive and solitary, tracing shapeless figures on the ground with