The Empress and the Grand Duchesses corresponded with me regularly after they left Tsarkoe, in fact up to a few weeks of their departure for Ekaterinburg. These letters were entrusted to confidential persons and smuggled by them out of the prison. Those who expect startling revelations of political importance will be sadly disappointed in these pathetic little leaves which have drifted from Friendship’s tree across a passion-racked country, and, like the song, “have found their home” in the heart of a friend. But, for the student of psychology, the just man or woman, the curious seeker “behind the scenes” of Royalty, they will, I think, possess some interest. They will plead for a hearing far more effectively than any poor words of mine. Not one of them contains a sigh for the splendours of a throne. The woman who longed to be in the Crimea at a time of year when the acacias were like “perfumed clouds” made no allusion to the past glories of the Winter Palace, or the comfortable “English” life at Tsarkoe Selo. Perhaps the words of the writer who “being dead yet speaketh” may serve to efface some of the lies and scandals which have bespattered the name of an Empress who has been condemned so unmercifully. The Empress and I have never met since that March afternoon when she bade me farewell. I cannot accept the almost overwhelming proofs of the tragedy of Ekaterinburg. From time to time reports of the safety of the Imperial Family have reached us, but the next moment we are faced with evidence that the whole of them have perished. God alone knows the truth, but I still permit myself to hope. After my interview with Kobilinsky I returned to Petrograd, where I spent some uneventful weeks. Poor Anna was right when she said that things were no better after the Revolution than they were before! Existence was a difficult problem: a period of starvation set in, and we, like others, became familiar with the pangs of hunger. It was impossible to procure nourishing food for Titi; so, almost at my wits’ end, I applied for permission to remove him to South Russia. This permission was most unexpectedly granted. Two weeks later Kerensky’s Government fell, and for the moment I was forgotten! We lived very quietly at Beletskovka, and I was always planning the best way of escape to rejoin my beloved friends. “_L’homme propose, et Dieu dispose._” A wave of Bolshevism swept over South Russia, and our safety was menaced to such an extent that I was forced to escape with Titi to Odessa, and, as our adventures in no way touch on the subject of this book, I shall refrain from relating them. Suffice it to say that we managed to reach Odessa, and from thence, under the protection of the French, we went to Constantinople. From Constantinople we made our way to Gibraltar, and from Gibraltar to England, where my husband was awaiting me after a three years’ separation. EXTRACT FROM THE LETTER OF 5 JUNE, 1917.