“I saw Prince Orloff to-day,” she said to me, “he was reeking of valerian. Poor man, what an effort it must cost him to speak to me.” The Prince exercised no discretion whatever in his statements about the Empress and Rasputin; he seemed impelled to disparage her--his hatred amounted almost to a ’phobia--and at last the Emperor lost patience with him and sent him to the Caucasus. Princess Olga Orloff was received shortly afterwards by the Empress. The Empress was very fond of Olga, but it was a very unpleasant interview, as the Princess tried to explain that her husband had been grossly maligned. The Empress described the interview to me: “I’ve had a dreadful time, Lili,” she said, “Olga Orloff has just been. I’m very, very sorry for her, she’s in a terrible state. When I rose, she began to speak most wildly, and to insist that her husband was devoted to me and to our interests. I knew that, if I were to sit down, I should burst into tears; so I kept standing. It was an awful moment.” Rasputin always had a presentiment of a violent death. He often remarked, with an air of profound conviction: “Whilst I’m alive all will be well, but, after my death, rivers of blood will flow. Nothing, however, will happen to ‘Father’ and ‘Mother’”--this was his way of alluding to the Emperor and Empress. About this time an old woman, a disciple of Elidor’s, came to see Rasputin one night, wearing a white dress plentifully trimmed with scarlet ribbons. Rasputin reproved her for this display. “How awful of you to wear these red ribbons,” he said. “Ah,” replied the old woman. “I _know_ why I wear red.” “And she knew full well,” said Rasputin, gloomily, when describing the incident to me. “Red is the colour of blood--and blood will soon be as plentiful as her scarlet ribbons.” Everyone who loved the Imperial Family was horrified at the ever increasing scandals; the wildest reports, mostly lies, with a sub-stratum of truth were current, and Rasputin was even said to have been sinning in Petrograd when he was actually in Siberia. It was impossible to persuade the Empress that popular feeling was against her. True, she heard what was said, and she occasionally read what was imputed to her, but she paid no attention to gossip or to mendacious paragraphs. She was obsessed by her religion, and she sent me and Anna Virouboff on a pilgrimage to Tobolsk in the summer of 1916. A new saint had been recently canonized at Tobolsk, and the Empress had made a vow to go thither herself, or to send a substitute. Anna asked me to consent, as she was afraid to travel alone, and, as the Empress begged me to go, I could do no less than prove my devotion to her wishes.