"The holy Father's secretary is here with me. The Father still remains at Perm. I am writing him urgently asking him to return to us. I wish you also to send a messenger to him to induce him to come back to Petrograd. You will be back here next Friday, and is it not wise to hold another seance next day, eh?" Then she listened eagerly. "Ah!" she exclaimed. "I am glad you agree with me, Nikki. Yes, let us try and get the Father back by Saturday at latest. Good-bye." And having rung off, she calmly finished the letter and secured it with the well-known big seal of black wax. "Remember," she said as she gave it to me, "the Father must be here next Saturday for the seance, which the Emperor will attend. He wishes again to consult the spirit of his father Alexander. Urge the Father to return at once." I promised to do her bidding, and, retiring, at once left the palace, and at midnight was on my way back to the far-off town on the Kama. On the evening of the following day I drove up to the monastery and there found Rasputin at dinner with the ex-conjurer Rouchine. When I entered the cosy little room in which the pair were seated, Rasputin had removed his long robe and was seated in his shirt-sleeves like the peasant he was. I handed him the letter from the German-born Empress, whereupon he said: "Oh! read it to me, Feodor. The woman's handwriting is always a puzzle to me." I knew how illiterate he was and the reason of his excuse. I tore open the envelope and quickly scanned the scribbled lines. "No," I replied, "not now, Gregory; later." "But I insist!" cried the Starets fiercely. "And I refuse!" was my determined reply. "I have reasons." Those last three words were not lost upon him, for Grichka was nothing if not the very acme of shrewdness. Not an adventurer or _escroc_ in Europe could compare with him in elusiveness. "Well, Feodor, if you have reasons, then I know that they are sound ones," he said. Then, turning to the "holy" conjurer, he grinned and said: "Feodor is a most excellent secretary. So discreet--too discreet, I often think." "One cannot be too discreet in the present international crisis," I remarked. "Enemy eyes and ears are open everywhere. One can never be too careful. Russia is full of the spies of Germany." "Quite true, Feodor--quite true!" exclaimed Rasputin, smiling within himself. "Don't you agree, friend Rouchine?" "Entirely," replied his accomplice, who, though he was well paid to assist in working "miracles" before the peasants, never dreamed that the Starets, who handed him money with such lavish hand, was the chief agent of Germany in Russia.