"What Her Majesty desires, I am here to obey," was the monk's quiet
response. "I pray that no injustice be done," the blasphemer added,
piously crossing himself.

"Injustice!" cried the girl angrily. "He deceived me, and left me to
starve when he received his advancement and came here to Petrograd. He
became the Tsar's favourite because of his cruel and harsh treatment of
our poor people of Samara, and has climbed to office over the bodies of
those shot down in the streets at his orders. Injustice! There is
assuredly no injustice to drag the ghastly truth concerning him into the
light of day."

"Not at all! I quite agree," said Rasputin, rising and shaking her hand.
"You can tell your lawyer from me that you have my assistance, but in
strictest secrecy, of course. Not a soul must know of it, remember!" he
added, looking straight at her with that strange hypnotic glance of his,
a gaze beneath which she quivered visibly.

"I shall remain silent," she promised.

"If the truth leaks out that you have seen either Her Majesty or myself,
then I shall instantly become your enemy, and not your friend," the monk
declared.

"Only Monsieur Hardt knows," the girl said. "It was he who took me to
Peterhof."

"You may rely upon the silence of both my friends," Rasputin assured her,
and a moment later I conducted her downstairs and out into the street.

When I returned to where Rasputin was still seated with his visitor, the
latter was, I found, making explanation how he had, after considerable
difficulty, traced the woman Baltz at the Empress's orders and taken her
to the Palace, first, however, prompting her to seek revenge upon the
Prime Minister.

"I cannot understand it at all," Hardt added.

"I do. Cannot you see that Stolypin is violently anti-German and openly
disapproves of the Germanophile party at Court?"

"But he is closeted daily with the Emperor, I understand. And the Empress
grants him frequent audiences."

"Because she is endeavouring to ascertain the true extent of His
Excellency's knowledge of her own dealings with our friends in Berlin,"
was the monk's reply. "Alix pretends to be most gracious to him, yet she
is distinctly antagonistic, more from fear than anything else. To-day he
is a favourite at Court, to-morrow----"

And Grichka made a wide sweep with his dirty knotted hand without
concluding his sentence.

"Has Her Majesty spoken to you concerning her fears that Stolypin has
discovered somethi