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Show U heaven's Tendance; the fangs of the dead beast had still retained their veuom. St. Jama1 GmttlU. '"Psnl" Belskol." she said calmly, 'you muf. be mad; the Prince Bakou-line Bakou-line owes yea a deep debt of gratitude." and then he rose and turned tier back on me. 'Hut let mo thauk rou, M. Bolskoi,' she said formally; 'let me thank you in his name for "saving my life.1 and then she turned as pale as death and seized my hand. Paul!' she shrieked, as she fell upon her knees at niy feet, 'Paul, my lore, my lilt.', you are wounded, uud for my worthless sake!' "And then I saw three bleeding points upon the back of my hand. 'Madam,' I said coldly, 'sympathy fer one below you in degree is surely misplaced.1 mis-placed.1 I turned away, Louis; aud I walked alone to the castle. "The French doctor from Warsaw gives me every hope, but, Louis, something some-thing tells me that I shall die. and I shall have died in saving the life of a woman who is worthless. "Louis, there is groat news for you, my brother; the czar is willing to let bygones bo bygones; our rauk and our property are to be restored. Prince Vlastoff only to-day handed mo the rescript from bis imperial master. 'Count Bolskoi,' he said, as he pressed my hand, 'don't speak to mo of gratitude; grati-tude; I shall ever be vour debtor.' ," "The French doctor has come again. My brother, there is no hopo and I must die. It may bo a question of days or hours only. Already I swallow swal-low with the greatest difficulty. Tray, Louis, pray for the soul of one who longs for death. Your unhappy un-happy brother. "PAUL." There were two other letters one from Prince Vlastoff, auother from the loctor. They gavo me the dreadful i details of my brother's death. He lied, as he had predicted, after fearful wfferings from the luania of hydrophobia. hydro-phobia. I have visited my brother's grave. I have seen the place where my brother's life was sacrificed for the Princess Bakouline for she became the Princess Bakoulino, of course. And then I went to St. Petersburg to thank my imperial muster for his clemency, nnd staid with Prince Vlastoff. One night as I was talking to my host lie said to me: "You've never been in this room before, I think. The very rug your feet aro resting on is the skin of the wolf that killed your brother. The head is wonderfully life-like." he said. "Yes, there was "the head with glaring glar-ing eyes of glass, the mouth wide open, the lips retracted, showing a double range of fierce and cruel fangs. "It makes me shudder when I look upon it," said Prince Vlastoff; "but it's a work of art all the same," he added with a little laugh. Presently he left me and I sat by the fire in a half-doze and thought of my brother aud his miserable death. It was close ou midnight. Tho door was suddenly thrown open, THE WOLF'S FAN G S. Paul and I were twin brothers, gentlemen gen-tlemen by birth, since onr father was a Ft'tish count, who had been deprived of his estates in connection with the events of 1S03, an Englishman by breeding. After tho death of our father, when we were quite childreu, we two had been brought up out of charity by a countryman, who taught tianciug and lived iu a shabby London street. As time wont on I earned my four guineas a week ns a violinist; but my brother, Paul Bolskoi, becamo the darling of society first, perhaps, because be-cause lie had the moat beautiful voice in all the world; next, because he was the very handsomest man I ever saw. "I've seen her at last, Louis," said my brother one night to me "the woman I've been longing for and dreaming of all my life and I'm about to become a teacher of singing," he .added, with a laugh. "You wouldn't wonder, Louis, if you saw my pupil," bihI he look from his pockctbook a photograph. It was the portrait of a woman a fair woman with a hard mouth and cruel eyes. "She thanked nie for singing for her, and then she said: 'Monsieur, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to give me a few lessons in singing.' I stared at her in -astonishment. 'Ah,' she said, 'M. liol-skoi, liol-skoi, the siuging lessons are only a pretext. I know your story; I kuow that you are of noble blood; I know that your father's property and estates were confiscated long ago, and I would help you to regain them. Perhaps I'm not altogether disinterested,' she said, aud she gave nie one look from those soft, languid eyes of hers a look, Louis; which sent tho blood coursing through my veins. For I love her, Louis!" he cried. The love of the princess for my lint P'liil littjl Knortma a mgt Im1 ,,f j -common talk amongour friends by -the time that Prince Vlastoff had obtained leave to visit his estate in southern ! Russia. My brother Paul was to travel in his suite, -and it was arranged that iu the wiuter. when he proceedod to the capital, the prince should present hint to tli'o czar, and use his influence in his favor. They had been gone a mouth before I beard from my brother Paul. At length he wrote as follows: "I have returned to tho barbaric life, aud I enjoy it. Tho prince keeps nlmost regal state iu his great castle of Samarof. ' I enjoy the free, wild lifo, the riding, driving aud the hunting here, and I um happy, for I am with the woman I love. The prince is already al-ready moving in our matter, and has no doubt, so he tells me, of his ultimate ulti-mate success." Here the letter was continued in a shaky, hurried writing, totally unlike the commencement, which was written in my brother's beautifully clear hand: "Louis, a terrible misfortune has happetied. The princess and I were wandering in the park a week ago, the ery day when 1 commenced this letter to you, when we heard, loud shouts and cries. Suddenly, from a tangled thicket close to us appeared a wolf. There is nothing very terrible here in a solitary wolf in the summer time, but this was uo ordinary wolf. The brute was mad; it had been bunted and badly wounded by the huntsmen ' and torn" by dogs; its tongue hung from its mouth, and as it came toward us it uttered little yelping barks. 'Save mo,' cried tho princess 'save mo, Paul!' she shrieked, as she clutched my arm. , Her voice attracted the attention atten-tion 6f the infuriated beast, and it made for us at onco. Nadia fell faint-intr faint-intr to the ground. As the brute made its spring 1 clutched it by the throat, and "we fell to the ground together. I got my knee upon its chest and I tried to choke the life out of it. I felt its hot breath on my cheek, and I stared with terror at its red eyes, and I wondered won-dered whether my strength would hold out. 'Fly!' I shrieked to the woman I loved 'lly. Nadia, for the love of lieaven!' 'But she never moved, for she lay upon the turf in a dead faint. The struggles of the wretched animal ' grew weaker and weaker, but I never relaxed my grip upon its throat; and slowly ah, "bow slowly! I strangled the beast, choking it to death. "I turned to Nadia and I raised her from the ground, and, pressing impassioned im-passioned kisses on her lips, I cried in her ear, There is uo cause for fear, my darling!' She seemed to wake as from a dream; tho great blue eyes opened and looked at me with unutteralile love, and my kisses were returned. 'You do love me, Nadia?' I cried, aud her head still l:y on niy chest. "'Love you.Paul?' she answered; "of use I love rou. Need I tell tou so In vfVds, Paul?' she said and she looked look-ed around her wildly. 'Let us make the most of our time, Paul,' and again she kissed me, 'for the man I am betrothed be-trothed to will come to claim my hand in one short mouth.' "'Nadia.' I cried, 'and you talk of loving me?' '"My marriage with the Prince Bakoulino,' she said, 'is one of policy, but I shall always love you,' she added, and then she looked at me iu sudden fear. 'Paul. Paul Bolskoi,' sho said, why do you look like that?' "'Princess Nadia,' 1 anwered, 'I never loved you; I loved tin woman I thought you were.' land a tall woman In evening dress, mulllod in an opera cloak, rushed into the room, locked the door behind her, and flung tho cloak from her shoulders. shoul-ders. On her pale cheek there was a great red mark. When she saw me she fell upon her knees. "Paul!" she cried in horrified acceuts "Paul Bolskoi, have you come back from the grave to haunt nie?" ; As I stared at her in astonishment I recognized my brother's evil genius iD the beautiful creature who knelt before me, looking into my face with frightened fright-ened eyes. "Madam," I said, coldly, "I am Louis Bolskoi." And then she rose. "You are very like him," she said, mechanically, and she sat down in the chair opposite nie and stared at the ghastly, grinning mask of the dead wolf, and as she looked she shuddered. "Your brother saved my life, Count Bolskoi," she said, with a groan. I bowed, but I did not answer her. "Your brother's was a dreadful death." she went ou, "aud 1 sat by his bedside and listened to his last ravings. He prayed in his wild delirium that I might never know happiness in this world. I sacrificed your brother's love to vain ambition aud sold myself to Prince Bakoulino. To-night he struck me you see the mark upon my face aud I leave him forever. Just before your brother's death, when his failing voice had sunk to a whisper, he opened his eyes and seemed to recognize recog-nize me. 'Nadia,' he said, 'you will repent, and when you have repented you will see me once agaiu and I shall summon you to meet your God.' He never spoke again. Count Bolskoi. I have repented, God knows how bitterly, bit-terly, and when I saw you sitting there I thought that Paul had come from the laud beyond the grave to drag me to the judgment seat of heaven. Count Bolskoi," sho said bitterlv, "I long for deaih." She never looked at me, but stared at the wolf's face upon the floor, and mechanically sho placed her tiny foot between tho double row of white aud glistening teeth. There was a furious knock at the r. The princess Nadia started to her feet, amr as she did so she gave a little scream of pain, and I saw a small spot of blood on hor satin foot-covering. The door was shaken furiously, the lock gave way, aud a man broke in anil hurled furious words at the beautiful woman, who stood confronting confront-ing him, pale and silent. Ho spoke in Russian, and then he turned to me. "You are the count Bolskoi, sir," he said. "Why do 1 find you closeted here with my wife?" aud ho glarod at me with furious eyes, inflamed with drink and jealousy. "I am the prince Bakonline, sir," he said, more calmly, "the husband jf this this woman." "And I am her father's guest," I laid, "and I do not baudy words with drunken men at midnight. But, Prince Bakouline, you are a coward. Hare the goodness to leave this house." And then he turned and left the room without a word. Next day we met. some dozen versts from Petersburg. Peters-burg. Prince Valstoff was my second, and I shot the Princess Nadia's husband hus-band dead and crossed the frontier within a dozen hours. And within the month the woman who had wronged wrong-ed my brother Paul died, as my poor brother had died, a raving maniac. The wolfskin rug was the instrument |