ed and took up a position, with outspread arms,
between the two beds, and in front of the door. Parkins watched it in a
horrid perplexity. Somehow, the idea of getting past it and escaping
through the door was intolerable to him; he could not have borne--he
didn't know why--to touch it; and as for its touching him, he would
sooner dash himself through the window than have that happen. It stood
for the moment in a band of dark shadow, and he had not seen what its
face was like. Now it began to move, in a stooping posture, and all at
once the spectator realized, with some horror and some relief, that it
must be blind, for it seemed to feel about it with its muffled arms in a
groping and random fashion. Turning half away from him, it became
suddenly conscious of the bed he had just left, and darted towards it,
and bent and felt over the pillows in a way which made Parkins shudder as
he had never in his life thought it possible. In a very few moments it
seemed to know that the bed was empty, and then, moving forward into the
area of light and facing the window, it showed for the first time what
manner of thing it was.

Parkins, who very much dislikes being questioned about it, did once
describe something of it in my hearing, and I gathered that what he
chiefly remembers about it is a horrible, an intensely horrible, face _of
crumpled linen._ What expression he read upon it he could not or would
not tell, but that the fear of it went nigh to maddening him is certain.

But he was not at leisure to watch it for long. With formidable quickness
it moved into the middle of the room, and, as it groped and waved, one
corner of its draperies swept across Parkins's face. He could not, though
he knew how perilous a sound was--he could not keep back a cry of
disgust, and this gave the searcher an instant clue. It leapt towards him
upon the instant, and the next moment he was half-way through the window
backwards, uttering cry upon cry at the utmost pitch of his voice, and
the linen face was thrust close into his own. At this, almost the last
possible second, deliverance came, as you will have guessed: the Colonel
burst the door open, and was just in time to see the dreadful group at
the window. When he reached the figures only one was left. Parkins sank
forward into the room in a faint, and before him on the floor lay a
tumbled heap of bed-clothes.

Colonel Wilson asked no questions, but busied himself in keeping everyone
else out of