nd for half an hour Depp sat reading over to
him the various police reports from Vilna and those of Petrograd.

The monk, leaning back in his arm-chair, stroked his unkempt beard, his
eyes fixed out of the window, brooding over his devilish scheme.

An hour later, after he had dispatched Depp to make certain inquiries in
Petrograd concerning the doings of the colonel's young wife, he said to
me:

"Feodor, I must see Soukhomlinoff to-night. Telephone to him at the
Ministry. If he is not there, you will find him at the palace. If so,
tell him to call here at once when he returns to Petrograd."

I found the Minister of War was at Tsarskoe-Selo, and spoke to him there,
giving him Rasputin's message, and receiving a reply that he would be
with us at ten o'clock that night.

I had to keep an appointment, at Rasputin's orders, with Protopopoff--to
deliver a letter and receive a reply; therefore I was not present when
His Excellency the General arrived. What the pair arranged I had no idea,
for when I returned to the Gorokhovaya the general was just stepping into
his big car with its brilliant headlights.

"Good night, Feodor!" he shouted to me merrily, for he was of a genial
nature, and next moment the powerful car drove away.

Events marched rapidly during the next fortnight. I had gone with
Rasputin to the General Headquarters of the Army at the Polish front, a
journey which the intriguer had been sent upon by those at Court whose
mouthpiece he was--to discuss a peace necessary for the Empire, he
declared.

Truth to tell, I knew that three days before the secret messenger Hardt
had arrived from Berlin by way of Sweden, bearing a dispatch with
elaborate instructions to the Starets.

The Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievitch received us on the evening of our
arrival at Headquarters, and, of course, the monk was full of one of
those fantastic tales which succeeded so well with many, either the
ignorant or credulous, or those to whose personal advantage it was to
pretend to believe him.

The Grand Duke received the Starets politely but stiffly, for he well
knew the power he wielded in the Empire, and that his will was law.

"Ah, Highness!" exclaimed the monk, "war is indeed a calamity. Alas! that
Russia hath offended God by entering upon it. But thou, in thy wisdom,
must put an end to it. The Holy Virgin appeared to me in a dream, and
told me we must conclude peace. I come to inform thee of her will."

"When didst tho