"Thou hast done well, my son, and thou art worthy the throne of the Romanoffs. Continue to defend our beloved land. Trust in the counsels of those about thee, of thy wife, of thy Ministers, especially Stuermer, Protopopoff and Soukhomlinoff, as well as the advice which the holy Father is ever giving thee. All have been sent to thee as good and faithful guides. My blessing is upon thee, O my son!" Such was the "message" so cleverly given to the credulous monarch by the traitors and intriguers about him. And alas! he believed truly and absolutely, ignorant of the fact that some thousands of roubles had gone into the medium's pocket as price of his connivance. On returning to Petrograd late on Thursday night I found among the monk's correspondence a letter from Madame Svetchine, a long, regretful letter, in which she expressed the greatest sorrow for the words she had uttered at the assembly of the sister-disciples, and begged to be forgiven. Further, she announced her intention of calling upon the Father "upon a serious and urgent matter." I told him this, whereat he growled: "Ah! the woman is coming to her senses. Yes. If she comes I will see her. She is pretty, Feodor--pretty--yes, very pretty." I drew a long breath. The unfortunate woman knew, no doubt, the serious charge against her husband, but never dreamed that Rasputin was the cause of that false accusation. Just before I ascended to my room to retire--the hour being about one o'clock in the morning--the telephone bell rang, and I answered it. One of the officials at the War Office was, I found, at the other end. "His Excellency the Minister has an urgent message to transmit to the Father," said the voice. "Very well," I said, stating who I was. "Then listen, please. The message he has written reads: 'Colonel Ivan Svetchine has been tried by court martial, which sat until half an hour ago. He has been condemned on a charge of dealing with the enemy and revealing military secrets to Germany, and ordered to be executed for treason. The execution is fixed to take place in the Peter and Paul Fortress at dawn on Saturday.'" I replaced the telephone receiver with a heavy heart. Yet another innocent man was to die as victim of Rasputin's overweening vanity and evil influence in every quarter. When I entered and told the monk, who was already in bed in a half-drunken state, he merely turned over and continued snoring. On Friday night, when, as usual, we had returned from Tsarskoe-Selo in one of the Imperial motor-cars, I was told that a lady was waiting to see the Starets, but she would give no name. She was persistent that she must see him, and had already waited nearly three hours. When I entered the waiting-room, a small chamber at the end of a corridor, I found it to be the wife of the condemned man. She was dressed in dead black, her beautiful face tear-stained and deathly pale.