So I can do no more than speak of Rasputin as I found him. If I had been a Rasputinière, or the victim of an abnormal passion, I should not be living happily with my husband, and Captain Dehn would never have countenanced any association with Rasputin if the latter had been guilty of immoralities at Tsarkoe Selo. His duty as a husband would have been greater than his devotion to the Imperial Family. I cannot entirely defend the Empress’s attitude. I love her, I reverence her memory, but I think she was, in many ways, perhaps, mistaken in her outlook. She argued, very rightly, that, even if she belonged to Russia, her soul belonged to God, and she had a perfect right to worship Him exactly in what manner most appealed to her. I have mentioned her views as to position being no ban where the instruments of God were concerned. In a worldly sense this was impossible, especially in Russia, where humility appealed neither to the peasant nor to the higher classes. The religious “communism” of the Empress outraged their sense of fitness ... the peasants could not understand one of their own class being on intimate terms with the Sovereigns ... the higher classes were bitterly contemptuous. Knowing the strong religious convictions of the Empress and the inborn characteristics of both classes, the Revolutionaries found in Rasputin a fitting agent of Imperial destruction. The Greek Church is the most mediæval of religions ... it is quite harmless, so to speak, when modern conditions are not introduced into its practice; but modernity, ever a fatal element in religion, is especially fatal to the Greek Church. The Empress would not understand this ... her faith taught her to credit the existence of holy men, hermits, and seers--so, when Rasputin appeared in the character of one of these, she was not surprised, and she accepted the actuality of his heaven-sent mission, as the teachings of her Church bade her. As I have stated, coincidence was largely responsible for the belief of the Empress in Rasputin’s gift of healing. His prayers coincided with the recovery of the Tsarevitch--that child of many prayers. In her love for her son the Empress was _plus mère que mère_. I am likewise assured that there was no theatrical clap-trap in Rasputin’s association with Anna Virouboff. Had Anna possessed the brains of Akilina, I might not be so positive--but Anna was no _intrigante_; in the face of possible denunciation as a Russian Sapphira, I repeat my estimate of Anna Virouboff, i.e., _childish, harmless, weak_.