"I have observed that he used to walk at a quick pace."
"This was more than a quick pace--it was almost a run, according to the fisherman--looking backward over his shoulder as he went."
"I did not notice that, but I should not be surprised if it were true, with a man of Robert Turold's temperament."
"He feared pursuit--some unknown danger, then?"
"I cannot say. He may have suffered from agoraphobia."
"I have heard of claustrophobia--the dread of closed spaces--but not of this."
"It is common enough--an absurd but insurmountable aversion to open spaces. The victims are oppressed by a terrible anxiety when crossing a field. I have known a man who would be terrified at the idea of crossing Trafalgar Square."
"What is the cause of agoraphobia?" asked Barrant.
"It is a nervous disorder--one of the symptoms of advanced neurasthenia."
"Did Robert Turold suffer from neurasthenia?"
"His nervous system was in a state of irritable weakness through the monomania of a fixed idea," was the reply--"too much seclusion and concentration on one object, to the exclusion of all other human interests."
"How's your patient?" said Barrant, giving the conversation an abrupt turn.
"What patient do you mean--Mrs. Thalassa?" asked Dr. Ravenshaw in some surprise.
"Yes. I gathered from what I overheard you say to Thalassa that you have been attending her."
"I have been attending her since Mr. Turold's death."
"She is in a strange condition," observed Barrant reflectively. "I was questioning her the other night, but I could get nothing out of her. She seems almost imbecile."
"She is not a woman of strong mind, and she is now suffering from a severe shock. She should be looked after or taken away from here altogether, but her husband seems quite indifferent."
"I should not like to hazard an opinion on that point, either," replied Dr. Ravenshaw gravely. He glanced at his watch as he spoke. "I must be going," he said.
They left the house together, but branched off at the gate--Dr. Ravenshaw to visit a fisherman's dying wife, and Barrant to seek the _Three Jolly Wreckers_ for supper before returning to Penzance.
From the kitchen window Thalassa watched them go: the doctor walking across the cliffs with resolute stride, the detective making for the path over the moors with bent head and slower step, as though his feet were clogged by the weight of his thoughts. Thalassa watched their dwindling forms until they disappeared, and then stood still, in a listening attitude. The sound of the lawyer stirring in the study overhead seemed to rouse him from his immobility. He closed the door, and stood looking up the staircase with the shadow of indecision on his face.