short scream of terror. She sprang out of bed and was
going toward the door, when she stopped.

It had suddenly occurred to her that Eliza Lippincott might have
entered the room and tied on the cap while she was asleep. She had not
locked her door. She looked in the closet, under the bed; there was no
one there. Then she tried to open the door, but to her astonishment
found that it was locked--bolted on the inside. "I must have locked it,
after all," she reflected with wonder, for she never locked her door.
Then she could scarcely conceal from herself that there was something
out of the usual about it all. Certainly no one could have entered the
room and departed locking the door on the inside. She could not
control the long shiver of horror that crept over her, but she was
still resolute. She resolved that she would throw the cap out of the
window. "I'll see if I have tricks like that played on me, I don't
care who does it," said she quite aloud. She was still unable to
believe wholly in the supernatural. The idea of some human agency was
still in her mind, filling her with anger.

She went toward the spot where she had thrown the cap--she had stepped
over it on her way to the door--but it was not there. She searched the
whole room, lighting her lamp, but she could not find the cap. Finally
she gave it up. She extinguished her lamp and went back to bed. She
fell asleep again, to be again awakened in the same fashion. That time
she tore off the cap as before, but she did not fling it on the floor
as before. Instead she held to it with a fierce grip. Her blood was
up.

Holding fast to the white flimsy thing, she sprang out of bed, ran to
the window which was open, slipped the screen, and flung it out; but a
sudden gust of wind, though the night was calm, arose and it floated
back in her face. She brushed it aside like a cobweb and she clutched
at it. She was actually furious. It eluded her clutching fingers.
Then she did not see it at all. She examined the floor, she lighted
her lamp again and searched, but there was no sign of it.

Mrs. Simmons was then in such a rage that all terror had disappeared
for the time. She did not know with what she was angry, but she had a
sense of some mocking presence which was silently proving too strong
against her weakness, and she was aroused to the utmost power of
resistance. To be baffled like this and resisted by something which
was as nothing to her strai