introduced into our private sitting-room, where I stood alone, a tall,
dark, middle-aged man, who clicked his heels as he bowed elegantly before
me.

Smiling, and without uttering a word, my visitor handed me half of a
plain visiting-card that had been roughly torn across, after I had
scribbled my signature across the back. From my cigarette-case I took the
other half, and placing them together, ascertained that they fitted. The
torn portion that the Baron von Hausen--for that was his name, I
learnt--had handed to me had been conveyed to Berlin by Hardt a month
before, in order that we might repose confidence in any person who called
upon us and bore it as the credential of the Koeniggraetzerstrasse.

My visitor was a pleasant, shrewd-eyed man, well dressed and wearing a
fine diamond in his black cravat, who, when he had seated himself at my
invitation, glanced to see if the door was closed, and then exclaimed:

"Well, Herr Koster, I trust that the Father and yourself have had a
comfortable journey."

"Quite," I replied. "But, of course, it is a very roundabout route."

"I expected you two days ago," said the baron, who at that moment rose at
the entry of Rasputin and greeted him.

The appearance of the monk in Berlin was very different from the figure
he presented in Petrograd. His hair and beard had been trimmed, he had
washed, and in his clerical garb he looked a typical Dutch pastor.

I introduced the pair, whereupon the baron said:

"His Majesty the Emperor wishes you to come to Potsdam at four o'clock
to-morrow afternoon. You are to meet the Chancellor."

To this the monk agreed, saying in his halting German:

"It is not the first time I have been received by His Majesty. I shall
bring Feodor."

"As you wish. But I question if His Majesty will allow him to be present
at the audience."

"In that case, Baron, tell His Majesty that I shall not come," remarked
the "saint" bluntly. "His Majesty the Tsar permits the presence of my
secretary, therefore why should your Emperor object? Give him that
message," he said, adding: "I have little time to spare here in Berlin,
and am returning to Petrograd almost at once."

The Baron von Hausen demurred, but Rasputin insisted on his message being
given to the Kaiser.

Then, when our visitor had left, the monk helped himself to a stiff glass
of brandy, and laughing said:

"The only way to treat these Germans is with dignity, Feodor. I want you
to note all he sa