"When will the Holy Father's pilgrimage end?" she inquired with a sigh. "He has been away weeks, and never replies to my letters."
"His time is no doubt fully occupied with constant devotion," remarked Anna Vyrubova in excuse.
"The Father is much occupied, Your Majesty," I said.
"Tell him for me that I am daily longing for his return," she said. "But wait. I will write to him and you shall convey the letter," at which order I bowed.
"The Father is much troubled and perturbed," I remarked.
"About what?" asked Her Majesty.
"He has enemies. Some men and women have leagued themselves with the object of doing him harm."
"Harm!" she echoed. "What harm can come to him when, being sent to us by God, he is immune from any harm that can befall us who are merely human? I do not understand."
Her words were in themselves sufficient to reveal how completely and implicitly the Empress of Russia believed in the pretended divinity of the blasphemous ex-convict.
"All I know, Your Majesty, is that the holy Father is unduly perturbed."