alan's psychic senses (mostly latent since adolescence) begin to warn him that something has gone wrong. troubling occurrences (including the sounds of water in the night, the sounds of a crying child in the garden, and the hinted supernatural nature of a large black alsatian dog) contribute to alan's sense of a fated outcome to käthe's fears of some impending doom. käthe, who has announced she may be pregnant, seeks succour from her unspecified anxieties by accompanying alan to the communion service at church, but is unable to swallow the communion wafer and faints when about to drink the communion wine. gradually the horror grows until after one haunted night, the couple flee their home.