hat she
shall sit at my feet and do my bidding!"

And he chuckled within himself as was his peasant's habit when mightily
pleased.

Truly, that meeting with the Tsar's valet Tchernoff was quite as fateful
to Russia as the meeting with the neurotic spiritualistic Empress
herself.

CHAPTER III

THE POTSDAM PLOT DEVELOPS

ABOUT a week after Rasputin's first audience of the Empress Alexandra,
the Bishop Theophanus, confessor of the Imperial family, paid him a visit
at the Poltavskaya.

The Bishop, a big, over-fed man, had a long chat with the Starets in my
presence.

"Her Majesty was very much impressed by you, my dear Grichka," said the
well-known cleric to the man who, having pretended to abandon his
profligate ways, had parted his hair in the middle and become a pilgrim.
"She has daily spoken of you, and you are to be commanded to audience
with the Tsar. Hence I am here to give you some advice."

The "holy" man grinned with satisfaction, knowing how complete had been
the success of Stuermer's plans. At the moment Theophanus was in ignorance
of the deeply laid plot to draw the Empress beneath the spell of the
Starets whom the inferior classes all over Russia--as well as the
well-to-do--believed was leading such a saint-like, ascetic life in
imitation of Christ.

Truly, Grichka dressed the part well, and gave himself the outward
appearance of saintliness and godliness. Even the Bishop was bamboozled
by him, just as Petrograd society was being mystified and electrified by
the rising of "the Divine Protector" of Russia.

Of his doctrine I need not here write. Dark hints of its astonishing
immorality have already leaked out to the world through chattering women
who were members of the cult. My object here is to expose the most subtle
and ingenious plot which the world has known--the Teutonic conspiracy
against our Russian Empire.

Rasputin's "religion" was not a novel one, as is generally supposed. It
was simply a variation conceived by his mystically-inclined mind upon the
one devised by Marcion in the early days of the Christian era. He had
conceived the theory that the only means by which the spirit could be
elevated was to mortify and destroy the flesh.

The Bishop Teofan, or Theophanus, was a mock ascetic, just as was
Rasputin. Bishop Alexis of Kazan, after Rasputin's visit there, had
introduced him to the Rector of the Religious Academy, and already the
mock saint had established a circle of asc