"All of a sudden I heard a strange rasping noise, and I woke up, with the feeling that there was someone in the room. I don't know just why I felt so sure of that, whether it was merely a sense of someone's presence, or the sound of someone moving about near my bed. I think, however, that it was the latter.
"The room was dark, of course, but enough light came through the windows to make a moving object distinguishable. I looked about, terribly frightened, but for a moment I saw nothing. The noise I had heard at first continued. Then without the least warning, a hand seemed to clutch at the bedclothes, and I saw above me, bending over me, a terrible dark face, exactly like the grinning death's head on those letters I've been getting.
"I lay perfectly still, frozen with horror, and in a moment the face had disappeared, and then I began to scream. Right after that I sprang from the bed and threw open the door, and found mother and Mr. Baker and yourself standing in the hall. That is all I know."
Duvall looked at her for a moment, puzzled.
"Are you sure you really saw someone leaning over you? Might it not have been an illusion, the result of your nervous condition?"
"No. I am certain someone was there--someone quite tall, I should say, and with a terrible, evil face."
"It might have been a mask, of course," Duvall suggested. "Someone wearing a mask."
"Yes. It might have been. It was too dark for me to tell, of course. But I remember the eyes, for I saw them distinctly. They were only a few inches from my own." She put her hands to her face and shuddered. "It was terrible, terrible. I shall never sleep in that room again."
"There--there, dearie," Mrs. Morton whispered in a soothing voice. "You need not sleep there. You can lie right here, for the rest of the night, and I will stay with you and see that no one harms you."
"That would be best, Mrs. Morton," Duvall remarked. "And to-morrow I suggest that you and your daughter move, temporarily at least, to another location. Some quiet hotel, where you will not be subject to these terrible annoyances. I cannot imagine how it is done, but in some way, some almost superhuman way, it seems, someone can apparently either enter your daughter's room, or at least reach it from without, at will."