All was arranged for the night of December 20th, and Rasputin sat with the Empress eagerly awaiting news that the deed had been accomplished. Instead of that, however, Protopopoff rang up from his house in Petrograd to say that Prohozhi had, on reflection, hesitated to harm Miliukoff, and moreover had revealed to young Prince Felix Youssoupoff and several others the whole of the conspiracy! When told of this the Empress fainted. She saw that all was now lost. Indeed, on the following day Miliukoff rose in the Duma and made a second and more powerful attack upon the camarilla, singling out Protopopoff as one of the worst offenders. Again he held in his hand his famous bundle of documents, evidence of the treachery of the "dark forces," and in a magnificent speech he defied the Government, and urged the people to judge matters for themselves in the light which those documents would cast upon events. In that latest denunciation of Rasputin and his friends there was a ring that resounded through Europe. The Tsar had again left for the front, while the Empress, nervous and trembling, held Rasputin and Anna ever at her side. The precious trio which had wrecked Russia were now seriously perturbed at the ugly state of public opinion. A dark storm-cloud had arisen, but Rasputin, with his boldness and contempt for the people, assured the Empress that there was no cause for anxiety, and that all would be well. The seances of the sister-disciples in Petrograd had been suspended, for the monk remained at the palace, and scarcely ever left it. Protopopoff came daily to consult with the Empress, with her mock-pious favourite and the treacherous pro-German Fredericks, for yet another fresh plot was being formed against those who were so antagonistic to the Government, a plot which was to be worked by unscrupulous _agents-provocateurs_, with the object of placing among their effects incriminating correspondence relating to a widespread conspiracy (which did not exist) to overthrow the monarchy and suppress the House of Romanoff. The idea, having originated in Rasputin's fertile brain, had been taken up with frantic haste, for each member of the "dark forces" had decided that "something must be done," and that the situation had become most perilous for them all. In those snowy December days, the people at last realised that they were being tricked, and that the German-born Empress was striving, with her sycophants and with the "holy" rascal, for a separate peace. Secret meetings were being held everywhere in Petrograd, the police were making indiscriminate arrests, and Schluesselburg was already overflowing with its human victims whom Rasputin had indicated, for a hostile word from him meant imprisonment or death. He was, indeed, Tsar of All the Russias. Such was the breathless state of things at Tsarskoe-Selo in the last days of December. * * * * * Then came the final dramatic coup.