Free The Satanist by Dennis Wheatley Page B

them or not, as the only means of repaying the instalments on the loan.
    She soon learned that such encounters were not always unpleasant, but in most instances she found them loathsome and degrading. Moreover, as the club was very far from being thought of as a centre of prostitution, advances of that kind were made to the girls there only occasionally, and it soon became apparent to her that Barney had treated her with exceptional generosity; which meant that a considerable time must elapse before she was entirely free from her debt.
    Those months remained vivid in her memory: the horror and pain of the illegal operation; her misery at having to give up practising her religion because she could not bring herself to confess to having committed so grievous a sin; the nausea that had at times assailed her from having to submit to the caresses of half-drunken men; the awful strain of having to pretend to enjoy it when, tired from a long evening’s dancing and aching for her bed, she had been driven miles out into the country by some stranger to be made love to in the back of his car; and the shame aroused in her by the sneering looks or lecherous grins of slatternly chambermaids who had shown her up with men to tawdry bedrooms in dubious little hotels.
    And her penance had lasted longer than it need have done, since, to bring some cheer into her life, she had given way to the understandable weakness of using part of the money she earned to buy better clothes and many small luxuries which she could not before afford. With the interest on her debt, it had been ten months before she had managed to get clear finally. Then, shortly afterwards, during a fortnight’s holiday at the seaside, she had met Teddy Morden; and he had taken her to London, freeing her from her past, and giving her his love, his name and a happy married life.
    Yet even four years as a contented wife had not made her feelings about Barney Sullivan less bitter. It was his act which had resulted in those ten months during which she had hardly known a day free from anxiety, or disgust with herself at the life she had been forced into leading! It never entered her mind that if a man paid a girl to go to bed withhim he was entitled to assume that she knew how to look after herself, and was not responsible for what might become of her afterwards. As she saw it, he should have known that he might have put her in the family way and come to the club again to find out if she was all right; instead of which, as it appeared to her, he had deliberately refrained from doing so from fear that she might be pregnant by him, then gone off to America leaving her to her unhappy fate. In consequence, in her mind he had become the symbol of all that is mean and contemptible in a man.
    With a little start she suddenly realised that Mr. Silcox had come to the end of his talk. During the ten minutes that followed several members of the audience asked him questions, which he answered with easy assurance. Then Mrs. Wardeel moved a vote of thanks to him which met with decorous applause, after which she said:
    ‘Now, dear fellow followers of the Way, let us rearrange the chairs and see what Mrs. Brimmings has in store for us. No doubt some of you will have heard of Mrs. Brimmings. From the accounts I have had she is a remarkably gifted medium and under her control, the Chinese Mandarin Chi-Ling – whose last incarnation took place some two hundred years ago – she is able to make contact with not only the first, but also the second and third, astral planes. We are most fortunate in having her with us tonight.’
    Everyone stood up. The unoccupied chairs were put back against the wall and the rest formed into a large circle, in the middle of which a chair was placed for Mrs. Brimmings. As Mrs. Wardeel led her forward to it, Barney saw that she was a small, faded elderly woman with grey hair scragged back into a bun, and wearing rather shoddy clothes. It occurred to him that she might