“Shut up,” said the Saint.
“I was trying to listen,” Lissa said, “to see if I couldn’t hear something. I mean if he was really moving or if I’d just woken up with the frights and imagined it, and my ears were humming so that it didn’t seem as if I could hear anything. But I did hear him. I could hear him breathing.”
“Was that when you screamed?”
“No. Well, I don’t know. It all happened at once. But suddenly I knew he was awful close, right beside the bed, and then I knew I was wide awake and it wasn’t just a bad dream, and then I screamed the first time and tried to wriggle out of bed on the other side from where he was, to get away from him, and he actually touched my shoulder, and then there was a sort of thump right beside me — that must have been the knife — and then he ran away and I heard him rush through one of the doors, and I lay there and screamed again because I thought that would bring you or somebody, and besides if I made enough noise it would help to scare him and make him so busy trying to get away that he wouldn’t wait to have another try at me.”
“So you never actually saw him at all?”
She shook her head.
“I had the shades drawn, so it was quite dark. I couldn’t see anything. That’s what made it more like a nightmare. It was like being blind.”
“But when he opened one of these doors to rush out — there might have been a little dim light on the other side—”
“Well. I could just barely see something, but it was so quick, it was just a blurred shadow and then he was gone. I don’t think I’ve even got the vaguest idea how big he was.”
“But you call him ‘he,’ ” said the Saint easily, “so you saw that much, anyway.”