ike
way. "Mademoiselle has been the dupe of His Excellency, who, while
Governor, often went to Stavropol, where he stayed at an hotel under
another name. Mademoiselle never knew his identity until a year ago, when
she saw his photograph in the papers as Prime Minister. She never knew
that he was married--though I have here a letter in which he proposes
marriage to her."

And he produced from his pocket a note, bearing the heading of the
Centralnaya Hotel at Samara, which Rasputin read through.

"Well?" asked the Starets, blowing a cloud of cigarette smoke from his
bearded lips.

"Mademoiselle is anxious to meet His Excellency."

"Ah! I see," exclaimed the monk, whose mind at once turned to blackmail,
a course which he himself was actively pursuing. "Mademoiselle wishes for
money--eh?"

"No, Father," replied the young woman stoutly. "Not money--only justice!
Peter Stolypin misled me, as you see according to his letter. I am but
one of his many victims, and I desire to expose him."

"H'm!" grunted Rasputin, who, having ascertained that no monetary
consideration was forthcoming, was not particularly interested in the
affair. He never did anything without reward. Those who could pay him
well obtained through his influence at Court high office and big
emoluments. Within my own knowledge in at least twenty cases he was
already receiving heavy percentages upon the salaries, including those of
two bishops and three under-secretaries, who had been dug out from
nowhere and pitchforked into office by him.

By his influence with Nicholas the rascal ruled Russia with a relentless
recklessness unparalleled in all history.

"Mademoiselle has already had audience of Her Majesty, who has sent her
here to interview you," Hardt explained. "I am placing her case in the
hands of our friend Altschiller."

The latter was a well-known lawyer, who, by the way, was afterwards
proved to be a spy of Austria.

"What do you desire of me, my dear young lady?" asked Rasputin in the
paternal manner he so often assumed towards the fair sex who hung about
the hem of his ragged robe, and knelt so constantly before him for his
blessing.

"You, Father, are all-powerful in Russia," replied Vera Baltz. "Her
Majesty told me that you would help me to--to destroy Stolypin," she said
with a fierce expression in her black eyes.

Rasputin exchanged glances with the secret agent of Potsdam who, I knew,
did so much dirty work on the Empress's behalf.