the Equinox - The Hermetic Library

176
THE EQUINOX
snow, and the fair skin wrinkled, and those eyes, that had
turned so many happy lives to stone, dulled, and became as
pewter dappled with the dregs of wine. The girl of twenty
had gone, before him stood a hag of sixty, bent, decript,
debauched. With dribbling curses she hobbled from the
room.
As Frater P. left the house, for some time he turned over
in his mind these strange happenings, and was not long in
coming to the opinion that Mrs. M. was not working alone,
and that behind her probably were forces far greater than she.
She was but the puppet of others, the salve that would catch
the kids and the lambs that were to be served upon her
master’s table. Could P. prove this? could he discover who
the masters were? The task was a difficult one; it either meant
months of work, which P. could not afford to give, or the
mere chance of a lucky stroke, which P. set aside as unworthy
of the attempt.
That evening whilst relating the story to his friend H. L.
he asked him if he knew of any reliable clairvoyant. H. L.
replied that he did, and that there was such a person at that
very time in Paris known as The Sibyl, his own “belle amie.”
That night they called on her; and from her P. discovered, for
he led her in thespirit, the following remarkable facts.
The vision at first was of little importance, then by degrees
the seer was led to a house which P. at once recognised as
that in which D.D.C.F. lived. He entered one of the rooms,
which he also at once recognised but curious to say, instead of
finding D.D.C.F. and V.N.R. there he found Theo and
Mrs. Horos. Mr. Horos (M.S.R.) incarnated in the body of
V.N.R. and Mrs. Horos (S.V.A.) in that of D.D.C.F. Their