At last all the evidence was in safety. It was time, for, as had just been proved, we were marked down. An hour later we slipped out of the train one after the other and made our way unobserved between the carriages of others standing near. On the next day General Ditériks brought General Janin the box containing the relics of the Imperial family. This happened on March 19th, 1920. * * * * * There was nothing now to keep me in Siberia. I felt that I had fulfilled the last duty towards those to whom I was attached by such poignant memories. More than two years had passed since I had been separated from them at Ekaterinburg. Ekaterinburg! As I was leaving Russia, with what emotion I lived again, down to the least details, the painful scenes which this name called up in my mind! Ekaterinburg to me meant the despair of feeling my every effort vain; cruel and brutal separation; for them it was to be the last stage of their long Calvary, two months of suffering to be endured before the supreme deliverance. It was the period when Germany was determined to triumph at any price and believed that victory was at last within her grasp; and while William fraternised with Lenin, his armies were making one more thrust at Paris. In this total collapse of Russia there were still two points of resistance; in this abysmal night two fires remained where the flame of faith still burned bright. There was, on the one hand, General Alexeief’s gallant little army of volunteers, struggling desperately against the Soviet regiments stiffened by German officers. On the other, behind the wooden enclosures which imprisoned him, the Czar, too, was leading his last fight. Supported by the Czarina, he had refused all compromise. Nothing remained but to sacrifice their lives; they were ready to do this rather than bargain with the enemy who had ruined their country by violating its honour. And death came, but death refused to separate those whom life had so closely bound together, and it took them all seven, united in one faith and one love. I feel that events have spoken for themselves. Anything I might be able to add now--intensely as my feelings have been quickened by recalling those days of anguish relived sometimes from hour to hour--would appear mere vain literature and misplaced sentimentality compared with the poignant significance of the facts. I must, however, assert here this conviction: it is impossible that those of whom I have spoken should have suffered their martyrdom in vain. I know not when it will be, nor how; but one day or other, without any doubt, when brutality has bled itself to death in the excess of its fury, humanity will draw from the memory of their sufferings an invincible force for moral reparation. Whatever revolt may rankle in the heart, and however just vengeance may be, to hope for an expiation in blood would be an insult to their memory.