friend Hardt?" asked the monk, flinging himself carelessly into
his easy chair and unbuttoning his long black coat for comfort. "What has
happened? You can, as you know, speak before our faithful Feodor," he
added.

"I have waiting outside a young woman whom I want you to see," replied
the German agent.

"Does she wish to enter our circle?" inquired the monk, adding with his
usual avariciousness: "Has she money?"

"No--neither," was Hardt's reply. "She does not want to become one of
your disciples; indeed, the less you say on that matter the better!"

"Then why should I trouble to see her?"

"I will tell you all after you have chatted with her. May Feodor invite
her in? She is sitting in a droshky outside."

"If you wish," growled Rasputin. "But why all this mystery? I have much
to do. I am due at Countess Ignatieff's--and am already late."

"Remain patient, I beg of you, Father," urged the German suavely. "I am
acting upon instructions--from Number Seventy."

"From Number Seventy!" echoed the monk, instantly realising that Hardt,
an agent of the German Secret Service, was carrying out some
well-concealed and ingenious project. "Very well," he said. "I rely upon
you not to delay me longer than necessary. Feodor," he added, turning to
me with that lofty air which his low mujik mind sometimes conceived to be
superiority, "go and find this mysterious young person."

A few minutes later I conducted into the saint's presence a dark-haired,
extremely handsome young woman of about thirty, who spoke with
considerable refinement and whose arrival mystified me greatly.

Hardt introduced her to the holy man, saying:

"This is Mademoiselle Vera Baltz, of Stavropol, a friend of His
Excellency Peter Stolypin."

"Ah! Welcome, my dear mademoiselle," exclaimed the monk affably. "So you
are a friend of His Excellency--when he was Governor of Samara, I
suppose?"

"Yes. I have come here because I crave your assistance. Monsieur Hardt
knows all the circumstances, and will explain."

The saint turned to the fair-haired man seated opposite him, Mademoiselle
Baltz having been given an easy-chair close by Rasputin's table. It was a
writing-table, but the scoundrel never wrote. Sometimes he pretended to
do so, but the truth was that it was a long and painful procedure with
him. He preferred to scrawl his initials to any typewritten letter which
I prepared.

"The explanation is briefly this, Father," said Hardt in his businessl