e, she went on:

"Please go at once to him and ask him to come to the Palace this evening
without fail. I am very anxious to see him concerning a highly important
matter. A carriage will meet the train which arrives at seven-thirty."

I promised to carry out the wishes of the Tsaritza's favourite
lady-in-waiting, and half an hour later called upon Stuermer at his fine
house in the Kirotshnaya, where I delivered the message.

During the next few weeks I merely called at the Poltavskaya each morning
for the monk's letters, which I opened and dealt with at my leisure.

His correspondence was truly amazing. The letters were mostly from
wealthy female devotees, missives usually couched in pious language. Some
contained confessions of the most private nature, and asking the Father's
advice and blessing. All these latter he had given me strict instructions
carefully to preserve. Any letter which contained self-condemnation by
its writer, or any confession of sin, was therefore carefully put away,
after being duly replied to. At the time, it did not occur to me that the
impostor ever intended to allow them to see the light of day, and,
indeed, it was not until several years later that I discovered that he
was using them for the purpose of extracting large sums from women who
preferred to pay the blackmail he levied rather than have their secrets
exposed to their sweet-hearts or husbands.

While Rasputin, having thrown off his cloak of piety, was leading a
dissolute life in far-off Pokrovsky, and refusing to obey the Empress's
repeated invitations, the guns of Peter and Paul one day boomed forth
salvo after salvo, announcing to the world that the prayer uttered by the
Starets before our Lady of Kazan had been granted.

An heir had been born to the Romanoffs!

There was but little public rejoicing, however, for Russia was, at the
moment, plunged into grief over the disastrous result of her attack upon
Japan. Nevertheless, the event more than ever impressed upon the neurotic
Empress that Grichka was possessed of some mysterious and divine
influence. Her Majesty believed entirely in his saintliness, and her
faith in the power of his prayers was complete. God had granted his
prayer and sent an heir to the Romanoffs because of his purity and
perfect piety. Already she was wondering whether, in some mysterious way,
the child's life was not linked with that of the holy Father whom the
Almighty had sent to protect her son's existe