"Do you really think so?" gasped the German in quick apprehension. "Why do you suspect?"
"From something whispered to me a week ago."
"Then Stolypin may know that Alexandra Feodorovna is behind the traitorous dealings of Colonel Miassoyedeff on the frontier—eh?"
Rasputin, his eyes fixed upon his visitor, slowly nodded in the affirmative.
"That means ruin—perhaps imprisonment for me!" Hardt gasped, his face pale and anxious.
"I might say the same thing," remarked the saint, stroking his long, untrimmed beard. "But I do not. We are both strong enough to resist all attacks. Any suspicion against Miassoyedeff must be removed. I will see that the Emperor promotes him to-morrow. Our one stumbling-block is Peter Stolypin."
"One that, I take it, must be removed?"
"Yes—at all costs. That is why the Empress has sought out this woman Baltz, who, if my estimate of her sex is correct, is a wild firebrand."
"She certainly is viciously vindictive."
"One thing is certain, our friend Stolypin has no idea that he is seated on the edge of a volcano," remarked the monk. "He lives extremely happily with his wife and children in that beautiful villa over on the Islands of the Apothecaries, and has no suspicion of the coming storm. I promised his wife to go to her salon to-morrow night."