ed:

"The warning you gave us concerning Yatchevski has proved quite true. He
has been in communication with a German agent in Riga named Kloess."

"Ah! I was quite certain of it, General," remarked the "holy" man, with a
sinister grin. "I discovered it quite by accident. Well, what have you
done?"

"He and his wife are both under preventive arrest, pending an Imperial
order. The papers we seized are conclusive. Among them was the enemy spy
code. The whole case is quite clear, and there can be no defence."

"Then there will be a court-martial?"

"Of course. I have ordered it to be held on the seventeenth, in Moscow."

"They are both clever agents of Germany," the monk remarked. "Be careful
that they do not slip through your fingers."

"No fear of that, Father," replied the general. "Possession of the German
code is in itself sufficient to secure them conviction and sentence."

The latter was indeed pronounced ten days later. The little fair-haired
woman, who was so devoted to Rasputin, and who frantically appealed to
him in vain to save her, was sentenced to imprisonment for life at
Yakutsk, in Eastern Siberia, while her husband, condemned for treason,
was next day shot in a barrack square behind the Kremlin in Moscow.

Truly, Gregory the Monk swept with drastic and relentless hand any enemy
who crossed his path.

It was about a week after I heard of the execution of the Governor of
Kaluga that I happened to be at Tsarskoe-Selo again with my evil-faced
master, being busy writing in the luxurious little room allotted to him.

Madame Vyrubova had been with us, discussing the condition of health of
the heir to the throne, when, after she had left, there entered quite
unexpectedly the Emperor himself.

"Gregory," he said, standing by the window, attired in the rather faded
navy serge suit he sometimes wore when busy in his private cabinet, "I
have been told to-day that the Holy Synod are once again agitating
against you. From what Stuermer has said an hour ago it appears that the
Church has become jealous of your friendship with my wife and myself. I
really cannot understand this. Why should it be so? As our divine guide
in the war against our relentless enemies, we look to you to lead us
along the path of victory. Alexandra Feodorovna has been telling me
to-day some strange tales of subtle intrigue, and how the Church is
uniting to endeavour to destroy your popularity with the people and your
position here at