."

"But you--if you are sent by God to Russia--will never allow an innocent
man to be murdered in this fashion--condemned upon the word of a
notorious woman."

"The affair does not concern me, I assure you," he laughed. "If your
husband has been condemned to death he must have had a fair and impartial
trial by his brother officers. I am not a military man, and know nothing
of such matters. If he has been found to be a traitor," added the unholy
spy of Germany, "then the sentence is just."

"But he is no traitor. He is as patriotic as you are yourself, Father! He
has ever been so," cried the despairing woman.

"I have no means of knowing that," he replied in a hard voice, gazing at
her with those strange, wide-open eyes, and endeavouring to put that
spell upon her that few women could resist. "Nevertheless, I will forgive
you, and, further, I will exercise my influence to save your husband's
life if you will consent to enter the circle of our holy disciples."

The desperate young woman held her breath for a few seconds, staring at
him wildly as upon her knees she still knelt, clutching the "saint's"
dirty hands.

"No," she replied. "That I will never do."

Rasputin saw that his plot had failed. Here at least was one woman over
whom he was powerless, one who regarded him as a fraud. In an instant he
flew into a sudden rage.

"Enough!" he cried, throwing her off. "You refuse to accept my
condition--therefore your husband shall die!"

The wretched woman, her countenance pale as death, tried to speak. Her
lips moved, but no sound came from them. Next moment, by dint of supreme
effort, she struggled to her feet and rose stiffly. Then, a moment
later, her hands clenched and despair in her splendid eyes, she turned
and staggered out.

Four hours later Colonel Svetchine boldly faced a firing-party in the
yard of the fortress. There was a word of command, and next second the
gallant soldier fell forward on his face--dead.

CHAPTER X

TRAITOROUS WORK

THE true story of the tragic death of a Russian civil servant named Ivan
Naglovski, and of the mysterious explosion which destroyed the great
munition works at Okhta and killed over four hundred and fifty persons
and injured seven hundred, has never been told.

There have been sinister whisperings in Russia, but I am here able to
unfold the amazing truth for the first time.

I had accompanied Rasputin to the Verkhotursky Monastery at Perm; the
house in th