e did not think that the past had ever been better than
the present.

"I believe, Monsieur Choulette, that men were always as they are to-day,
selfish, avaricious, and pitiless. I believe that laws and manners were
always harsh and cruel to the unfortunate."

Between La Roche and Dijon they took breakfast in the dining-car, and
left Choulette in it, alone with his pipe, his glass of benedictine, and
his irritation.

In the carriage, Madame Marmet talked with peaceful tenderness of the
husband she had lost. He had married her for love; he had written
admirable verses to her, which she had kept, and never shown to any one.
He was lively and very gay. One would not have thought it who had seen
him later, tired by work and weakened by illness. He studied until the
last moment. Two hours before he died he was trying to read again. He was
affectionate and kind. Even in suffering he retained all his sweetness.
Madame Martin said to her:

"You have had long years of happiness; you have kept the reminiscence of
them; that is a share of happiness in this world."

But good Madame Marmet sighed; a cloud passed over her quiet brow.

"Yes," she said, "Louis was the best of men and the best of husbands. Yet
he made me very miserable. He had only one fault, but I suffered from it
cruelly. He was jealous. Good, kind, tender, and generous as he was, this
horrible passion made him unjust, ironical, and violent. I can assure you
that my behavior gave not the least cause for suspicion. I was not a
coquette. But I was young, fresh; I passed for beautiful. That was
enough. He would not let me go out alone, and would not let me receive
calls in his absence. Whenever we went to a reception, I trembled in
advance with the fear of the scene which he would make later in the
carriage."

And the good Madame Marmet added, with a sigh:

"It is true that I liked to dance. But I had to renounce going to balls;
it made him suffer too much."

Countess Martin expressed astonishment. She had always imagined Marmet as
an old man, timid, and absorbed by his thoughts; a little ridiculous,
between his wife, plump, white, and amiable, and the skeleton wearing a
helmet of bronze and gold. But the excellent widow confided to her that,
at fifty-five years of age, when she was fifty-three, Louis was just as
jealous as on the first day of their marriage.

And Therese thought that Robert had never tormented her with jealousy.
Was it on his part a proof of