and once, when the door of the room was open, she
caught the glitter of a pair of eyes--the same pale, malevolent eyes
that had so frightened her in the cellar. From her earliest childhood
Letty had been periodically given to somnambulism, and one night, just
about a year after she went into service, she got out of bed, and
walked, in her sleep, into the Haunted Room. She awoke to find herself
standing, cold and shivering, in the middle of the floor, and it was
some seconds before she realised where she was. Her horror, when she
did discover where she was, is not easily described. The room was
bathed in moonlight, and the beams, falling with noticeable
brilliancy on each piece of furniture the room contained, at once
riveted Letty's attention, and so fascinated her that she found
herself utterly unable to move. A terrible and most unusual silence
predominated everywhere, and although Letty's senses were wonderfully
and painfully on the alert, she could not catch the slightest sound
from any of the rooms on the landing.

The night was absolutely still, no breath of wind, no rustle of
leaves, no flapping of ivy against the window; yet the door suddenly
swung back on its hinges and slammed furiously. Letty felt that this
was the work of some supernatural agency, and, fully expecting that
the noise had awakened the cook, who was a light sleeper (or pretended
she was), listened in a fever of excitement to hear her get out of bed
and call out. The slightest noise and the spell that held her prisoner
would, Letty felt sure, be broken. But the same unbroken silence
prevailed. A sudden rustling made Letty glance fearfully at the bed;
and she perceived, to her terror, the valance swaying violently, to
and fro. Sick with fear, she was now constrained to stare in abject
helplessness. Presently there was a slight, very slight movement on
the mattress, the white dust cover rose, and, under it, Letty saw the
outlines of what she took to be a human figure, gradually take shape.
Hoping, praying, that she was mistaken, and that what appeared to be
on the bed was but a trick of her imagination, she continued staring
in an agony of anticipation. But the figure remained--extended at full
length like a corpse. The minutes slowly passed, a church clock boomed
two, and the body moved. Letty's jaw fell, her eyes almost bulged from
her head, whilst her fingers closed convulsively on the folds of her
night-dress. The unmistakable sound of breathi