Shut in their room, Patsy and Bee beamed sleepily at each other and went about their preparations for bed in commendable silence, broken now and then by a soft exchange of remarks pertaining to the evening’s entertainment.
Lights out shortly became the order of things with them. Almost as soon as their heads touched the pillow they were off and away to dreamland.
There comes sometimes to a peaceful dreamer a curious sense of impending danger which breaks through the curtain of slumber and arouses the sleep-drugged faculties to alert wakefulness.
Just how long she had slept, Patsy had no definite idea. She knew only that she was sitting up in bed, broad awake, her horrified eyes staring at something tall and white which stood in the center of the moonlight-flooded room.
She tried to cry out, but her voice was gone. She could only gaze, half paralyzed with terror, at the fearsome white shape. For a moment it remained there, a shapeless, immovable thing of dread.
Suddenly, it raised a long, white-swathed arm in a menacing gesture toward the trembling girl in the big four-poster bed. It took one sliding step forward.
Patsy succeeded in uttering a desperate, choking sound, intended for a shout. One groping hand reached over and found Bee.
The dread apparition came no nearer the bed than the length of that one sliding step. It halted briefly, turned, then glided to the half-opened door and vanished into the corridor.