Nicholas II was with the army, at the headquarters of General Russky, when the alarming news from Petrograd reached him. He would return to the capital, he said; but at Bolgoe station he was quietly persuaded to return to Pskoff. There, in a small, dimly lighted room, the last of the Romanoffs received the delegates of the people--M. Gutchkoff and a conservative member of the Duma. It is said that Nicholas asked calmly what was required of him, and, when he was told that he must abdicate, he at once demanded a piece of paper. He would not, however, resign the crown to his son, as they wished. He would not be parted from his son, he said: and it is probable that he was moved by his deep affection for the boy. He would leave the throne to his brother Michael. The fateful document was there and then composed, and Nicholas II signed away his power: signed, as it proved, the death-warrant of the Romanoff dynasty. He remains ambiguous in his last imperial pronouncement. In words of singular dignity and detachment he answers the call of the Russian people to lay down his autocracy, and he prays for a speedy victory over Germany. But for the ghastly, unforgettable horrors which stain his reign we could find words of admiration for the last weak descendant of Michael Romanoff. [The End] End of Project Gutenberg's The Romance of the Romanoffs, by Joseph McCabe