“He was a—” She cleared her throat, and started again, staring down at her feet. “Raymond Elwood brought us here the first time. We thought it was funny. But Hador was a devil. He told you things and you believed them. You couldn’t help it. He told you everything and you believed it. Perhaps we were drugged. There was always a warm bluish wine. It must have been drugged. We couldn’t have done those things if it hadn’t. Nobody would—He called himself a priest—a priest of Alzoa. He taught a freeing of the spirit from the flesh by—”
Her voice broke huskily. She shuddered.
“It was horrible!” she went on presently in the silence Pat and I had left for her. “But you believed him. That is the whole thing. You can’t understand it unless you understand that. The things he taught could not be so. But he said they were, and you believed they were. Or maybe—I don’t know—maybe you pretended you believed them, because you were crazy and drugs were in your blood. We came back again and again, for weeks, months, before the disgust that had to come drove us away.
“We stopped coming, Ruth and I—and Irma. And then we found out what he was. He demanded money, more money than we had been paying while we believed—or pretended belief—in his cult. We couldn’t give him the money he demanded. I told him we wouldn’t. He sent us photographs—of us—taken during the—the times here. They were— pictures—you—couldn’t—explain . And they were true! We knew them true! What could we do? He said he would send copies to our father, every friend, everyone we knew—unless we paid.
“What could we do—except pay? We got the money somehow. We gave him money—more—more—more. And then we had no more—could