eld on Saturday. You must
be back in time. He is sending a messenger to you to urge you to
return to us to give us comfort in these long dark days. Anna and
the girls all kiss your dear hand.--Your devoted daughter, ALIX."

On the following day a middle-aged, fair-haired, rather well-dressed man,
who gave the name of Nicholas Chevitch, from Okhta, a suburb of
Petrograd, was brought to me by the monk who acted as janitor, and
explained that he had private business with Rasputin.

I left him and, ascending to the monk's room, found him extremely anxious
to meet his visitor.

"I will see him at once, Feodor. I have some secret business with him.
Here is the key of a small locked box in your room. Open it and take out
ten one-thousand rouble notes and bring them to me after you have brought
in Chevitch."

This I did. Having admitted the visitor to Rasputin's presence, I opened
the small iron box which the Starets always carried in his supposed
"pilgrimages," and took out the money, leaving in it a sum of about
twelve thousand roubles.

The ten thousand I carried to Rasputin, but as I opened the door I heard
the fair-haired man say:

"All is prepared. The wire is laid across the river. We tested it five
days ago and it works excellently."

"Good! Ah, here is my secretary Feodor!" the monk exclaimed. "He has the
ten thousand roubles for you, and there will be a further ten thousand on
the day your plan matures."

I wondered to what plan the Starets was referring. But being compelled to
retire I remained in ignorance. The man Chevitch stayed with the monk for
over an hour, and then left to return to the capital.

Later on I referred to the visit of the stranger, whereupon Rasputin
laughed grimly, saying:

"You will hear some news in a day or two, my dear Feodor. Petrograd will
be startled."

"How?"

"Never mind," he replied. "Wait!"

We arrived back in Petrograd on the following Friday morning, but
although the Empress sent a messenger to the Gorokhovaya urging the monk
to go to Peterhof at once, as she desired to consult him, he disregarded
her command and did not even vouchsafe a reply. Indeed, Rasputin treated
the poor half-demented Empress with such scant courtesy that I often
stood aghast.

"The woman is an idiot!" he would often exclaim to me petulantly when she
was unusually persistent in her demands.

Next evening, however, we went to the palace, whither another French
medium, a man