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Rh the sticks of a fan, his huge, round head bobbing up and down with the fervor of his incantations.

Another year came and passed. Another sensation boomed along and stirred the boulevards and set the tongues of Paris a-wagging; the personality of the prince blended still more deeply into the shadow of accepted things—and when strangers saw him walk down the street, accompanied by his armed servants, with his big body slightly trembling, his great purple-black eyes shooting anxiously from right to left as if expecting something or somebody to pop out at him from every corner and doorway, the people of Paris smiled—kindly and, too, tolerantly.

"Why, yes," they would say; "it's that Russian—Prince Pavel Narodkine—it's a habit of his, you know"—as if that were sufficient explanation.

Perhaps the whole mystery would have been forgotten for all time to come if it had not been for Dr. Marc Henri, who explained it, but only after the death of the prince, and even then very gently and apologetically—quite on the side of the prince, you understand.

For the doctor, a short, stocky, ugly little man with a clever, narrow face which sloped wedge-