"Pardon, madame, that is not your true estimate of Gregory Rasputin," he said, with biting sarcasm. "Only a short time ago I was a charlatan and a fraud! No; your opinion cannot have altered in so short a time."
"But you—if you are sent by God to Russia—will never allow an innocent man to be murdered in this fashion—condemned upon the word of a notorious woman."
"The affair does not concern me, I assure you," he laughed. "If your husband has been condemned to death he must have had a fair and impartial trial by his brother officers. I am not a military man, and know nothing of such matters. If he has been found to be a traitor," added the unholy spy of Germany, "then the sentence is just."
"But he is no traitor. He is as patriotic as you are yourself, Father! He has ever been so," cried the despairing woman.
"I have no means of knowing that," he replied in a hard voice, gazing at her with those strange, wide-open eyes, and endeavouring to put that spell upon her that few women could resist. "Nevertheless, I will forgive you, and, further, I will exercise my influence to save your husband's life if you will consent to enter the circle of our holy disciples."
The desperate young woman held her breath for a few seconds, staring at him wildly as upon her knees she still knelt, clutching the "saint's" dirty hands.
"No," she replied. "That I will never do."
Rasputin saw that his plot had failed. Here at least was one woman over whom he was powerless, one who regarded him as a fraud. In an instant he flew into a sudden rage.
"Enough!" he cried, throwing her off. "You refuse to accept my condition—therefore your husband shall die!"
The wretched woman, her countenance pale as death, tried to speak. Her lips moved, but no sound came from them. Next moment, by dint of supreme effort, she struggled to her feet and rose stiffly. Then, a moment later, her hands clenched and despair in her splendid eyes, she turned and staggered out.
