“But the symptoms first, please, my dear Svenska,” he interrupted, with a strangely compelling seriousness of manner, “and your deductions afterwards.”

She turned round sharply on the edge of her chair and looked him in the face, lowering her voice to prevent her emotion betraying itself too obviously.

“In my opinion there’s only one symptom,” she half whispered, as though telling something disagreeable⁠—“fear⁠—simply fear.”

“Physical fear?”

“I think not; though how can I say? I think it’s a horror in the psychical region. It’s no ordinary delusion; the man is quite sane; but he lives in mortal terror of something⁠—”