st of it; he was
almost deafening indeed at times. The prayers appeared to be devoted
entirely to the welfare of the Imperial family; at all events the
names of the Emperor, of the Empress, of the Empress Marie, of the
Tsarevitch and of the Grand Duchess herself were thundered out every
minute or two--they were the only words that I could understand
Listening to the priest's sonorous incantation reverberating through
the building that morning, one little dreamt that within less than two
years' time the winsome princess--her photograph was to be seen
everywhere in the Petrograd streets and she seemed to be especially
popular--whose day we were engaged in celebrating, would have been
foully done to death by miscreants in some remote eastern spot of
Russia.

We left for Petrograd in the evening, and shortly after the train got
under way a message came to hand to say that the Archbishop of
Petrograd was on board and hoped that I would pay him a visit in his
compartment. At the first hint of this, Wigram, being a man of
resource, went to sleep in self-protection; so only Zamoyski and I
proceeded to His Grace's lair. It turned out that the Archbishop could
not speak French, so that conversation had to be carried on through
Zamoyski. Our host, as is usual, sent for tea, and we spent about half
an hour talking about the war, the Emperor, Lord Kitchener and other
matters. His Grace, however, intimated that he was particularly
interested in the possibility of a union being effected between the
Orthodox and the Anglican Churches, and he expressed himself as most
anxious to have my opinion on the subject. Now this was not a matter
that I should have felt myself especially competent to debate at a
moment's notice even in English; but, seeing that the discussion was
being conducted in French, with a Pole as intermediary who happened to
be a Roman Catholic, the perplexities of the situation were
appreciably aggravated. A safe line to take, however, was to declare
that a union such as was proposed would be all to the good, and the
Archbishop pronounced himself as much gratified to find that I was
entirely in accord with him. He said something to his secretary, who
disappeared and turned up again presently with a beautiful little gold
pectoral cross and chain which His Grace presented me with, Zamoyski
receiving a smaller replica. When we got back to our own carriage and
the Staff Officer saw what we had carried off, he intimated his