"Are you ill?"
"No. Only worried."
"About what?"
"My wife."
"Your wife?" Nick echoed inquiringly. "You don’t mean——”
"No, no; there’s nothing wrong on her part, Nick," put in Mantell quickly. "She is all that a man could wish. But we’re living in a house of fear, Nick, a house of fear. The dread that hangs over us is something appalling. I have had in mind to appeal to you for more than a week, but I know you to be so busy that——”
"One moment," Nick interposed, noting the exceeding nervousness with which his companion was speaking. "What is the cause of your terrible fear? What is it that you dread? Is your wife threatened in any way, or——”
"That’s it!" Mantell cut in quickly. "That hits the nail on the head. She is threatened in a way that is breaking her down mentally and bodily; both of us, in fact. Our lives are becoming a ceaseless shudder, a nightmare from which——”
"Stop right there, Frank," Nick commanded, with some austerity. "I’ll listen to no more talk of that kind. Come[Pg 14] to the point at once and state the bare facts, or I’ll order your chauffeur to drop me on the next corner."
"You’re right, Nick," Mantell quickly admitted. "I think I have hypnotized myself with horrible dread. I cannot govern my own mind, or——”