This, however, was not at all an easy matter, considering the fact that the “Prophet” had become very careful and that his followers had him watched wherever he went for fear of an attack which they strongly suspected was being contemplated. The house where he lived, 64 Gorokhovaja Street, was always surrounded by policemen and secret agents, who examined every person who entered or went out of it. Rasputin himself had also grown suspicious, even of persons with whom up to that time he had been upon friendly terms, and he avoided the numerous invitations that began once more to be showered upon him. He spoke again of returning to Siberia, which was always with him a sign that he did not feel himself at ease in the capital. I had an opportunity to observe this restlessness the second time that I met him at the house of that Mr. De Bock whom I have already mentioned, when he declared to us that he was sick of Petrograd and of the many intrigues which were going on there. But that was before the war, and it seems that after it began the ideas of Rasputin changed and that he was always saying that he considered it his duty to remain beside his friends at this hour of national peril. The fact that his feelings had changed on the last point proves that he was aware of the danger in which he stood, and of which it is likely that he had been warned by the numerous spies who were but too ready to keep him well informed of all that was to his interest to know. One thing seems certain, and that is the activity which he began to display during the last weeks and days of his evil life in favour of the conclusion of a peace, which he now said Russia ought to make if she wished to escape from further sin, as he termed it. Why his feelings had undergone such a change it is impossible to say, but one may make a pretty near guess. One of the principal motives which actuated him undoubtedly was the idea that existed among a certain circle of persons that if peace were made with Germany, the English and French officials working with Russian officials in perfecting the defence of the fatherland, and whose presence already had prevented so many malversations, would depart. This would leave once more a free field for the rapacity of all the civil and military functionaries of the War Office and Commissariat Departments, who could make a new harvest of rubles as a result of the unavoidable expenses which the liquidation of the war would necessarily entail.