After all, however, you alone are to blame; is it my fault that you did not know how to act?
God bless you!" At the time when Samuel Brohl, seated amid the heather, in an oak-grove, was conversing with phantoms, Mme.

de Lorcy, alone in her _salon_, was occupied with her needlework, and her thoughts, which revolved in a circle, like a horse in a riding-school.

She had for several days been expecting Count Abel Larinski's visit; she wondered at his want of promptness, and suspected that he was afraid of her.

This suspicion pleased her.

Several times she fancied she heard a man's step in the antechamber, at which she started nervously, and the rose-coloured strings of her cap fluttered on her shoulders.
Suddenly, while she was counting her stitches, with head bent down, some one entered without her perceiving it, seized her hand, and, devoutly kissing it, threw his hat on the table, and then dropped into a chair, where he remained motionless, with his legs stretched out, and his eyes riveted on the floor.
"Oh! It is you, Camille," exclaimed Mme.