The latter was a well-known lawyer, who, by the way, was afterwards proved to be a spy of Austria.
"What do you desire of me, my dear young lady?" asked Rasputin in the paternal manner he so often assumed towards the fair sex who hung about the hem of his ragged robe, and knelt so constantly before him for his blessing.
"You, Father, are all-powerful in Russia," replied Vera Baltz. "Her Majesty told me that you would help me to—to destroy Stolypin," she said with a fierce expression in her black eyes.
Rasputin exchanged glances with the secret agent of Potsdam who, I knew, did so much dirty work on the Empress's behalf.
"What Her Majesty desires, I am here to obey," was the monk's quiet response. "I pray that no injustice be done," the blasphemer added, piously crossing himself.
"Injustice!" cried the girl angrily. "He deceived me, and left me to starve when he received his advancement and came here to Petrograd. He became the Tsar's favourite because of his cruel and harsh treatment of our poor people of Samara, and has climbed to office over the bodies of those shot down in the streets at his orders. Injustice! There is assuredly no injustice to drag the ghastly truth concerning him into the light of day."
"Not at all! I quite agree," said Rasputin, rising and shaking her hand. "You can tell your lawyer from me that you have my assistance, but in strictest secrecy, of course. Not a soul must know of it, remember!" he added, looking straight at her with that strange hypnotic glance of his, a gaze beneath which she quivered visibly.
"I shall remain silent," she promised.
"If the truth leaks out that you have seen either Her Majesty or myself, then I shall instantly become your enemy, and not your friend," the monk declared.
"Only Monsieur Hardt knows," the girl said. "It was he who took me to Peterhof."