"I came here to-night, Father, especially to meet you. Her Majesty gave me a message. She is in despair. She requires your help, prayers, and advice." "Ah! my dear lady, I regret; I am fully alive to the high honours which our Tsaritza has done me to command me to Court. But my sphere is with the poor. My life is with them--for their benefit and guidance." "I bear you a message," said the well-preserved woman of whom a thousand tongues had gossiped evilly in Petrograd. "To-morrow the Empress expects you informally. She will take no refusal." "Refusal--how can I refuse my Empress?" he replied. "I can beg of her to excuse me. I have to attend a meeting in the lowest quarter of the city to-morrow among those who await me. And in the evening I go upon a pilgrimage. Her Majesty will not begrudge the poor my ministrations. Please tell her this. My sphere, as designed by God, is with the masses and not in the Imperial Palace." That was all I overheard. Stuermer called me aside to whisper, and as he did so I saw that the Starets had at once become surrounded by women, of whom he always became the centre of attraction, with hands crossed so humbly over his breast. His refusal to go to Court was in accordance with his extraordinary intuition and acumen, though his meeting with the woman Vyrubova marked another milestone in the history of Russia's betrayal. The days passed. The world was, of course, in ignorance, but we in the Poltavskaya, the monk and myself, knew of the despatch of Admiral Rozhdestvensky's blundering fleet on its voyage half-way round the world, how he was ordered to fire upon anything he saw in the North Sea, and how, as soon came out, he fired upon some of your British trawlers on the Dogger Bank, for which our Government paid quite willingly sixty-five thousand pounds in compensation. But let the first war-chapter of Russia's history pass. With it Rasputin had but little to do. The person who, unwilling or not, carried out the will of Potsdam's Kaiser was the Empress Alexandra. And having done so she, with her curious nature, suddenly turned from gay to grave. She became strange in her conduct and discarded her wonderful Paris gowns--in which, by the way, she was eclipsed by "Liane," the dark-haired diva of the Paris _cafes chantants_, in whom Nicholas II. took such a very paternal interest. Time after time I had been present when Stuermer and Rasputin, chuckling over the undoubted success of their conspiracy, discussed the situation.