At this the hysterical traitress in her pale-pink gown edged with wide Eastern embroidery of emeralds and turquoises, fell upon her knees and kissed the scoundrel's knotted, unclean fingers, while her faithful Anna looked on and crossed herself, muttering one of the prayers in the blasphemous jargon of the "sister-disciples." The failure to assassinate Professor Miliukoff had brought home to the camarilla and also to the spy-bureau in Berlin--acting through Swedish diplomatic channels--that the Grand Dukes Nicholas, Serge and Dmitri, together with their small circle of staunch friends of the nobility, were determined to place them in the pillory. The agent of Germany, Skoropadski, a friend of the notorious Azeff, of the Russian Secret Police, whose exploits before the war were often chronicled, had betrayed his employers. Commencing life as a Russian _agent provocateur_, employed in Warsaw against the Revolutionists, and consequently a most unscrupulous and heartless person, he had entered the service of Germany with Protopopoff's connivance and had been the means of the ruin and downfall of dozens of patriotic Russian officials. By virtue of his office as spy of Germany he knew the double game that the Prime Minister, Sturmer, was playing at Rasputin's instigation. Documents passed through his hands, and often he passed in secret between Petrograd and Berlin and _vice versa_, posing as a Swede and travelling by way of Stockholm. He was an expert spy, and ready to serve any paymaster. Furthermore, he had a grudge against Rasputin because one of his own lady friends had joined the cult of "Believers," and thus had his hatred been aroused. Therefore, when the little band of patriots at the head of which was the Grand Duke Nicholas approached him in secret, he was at once ready to place the most damning documentary evidence in their hands--those papers which Professor Miliukoff had flashed in the faces of the Duma. The anger of Sturmer and Protopopoff was now at a white heat. The latter, as Controller of the Secret Police, made every effort to arrest the artful Pole, but he happily escaped, and is now believed to be in Paris. Such was the story, revealed here for the first time, of the manner in which the Revolutionists were able to present to the people's representative the infamous acts of the monk Rasputin and his official "creatures" who wore their tinselled uniforms, their tin decorations and enjoyed titles of "Excellency." Traitors have been in every land since the Creation; and, as I examined this amazing _dossier_ collected by the patriotic party in Russia, with its original letters, its copies of letters, its photographs and its telegrams in the sloped calligraphy of their senders, I marvel, and wonder who in other countries are the traitors--who while pretending to serve their own kings or their presidents are also serving the Mammon of Germania?