“It was the wrong door. I must retrace my steps,” she thought; but even as she laid her hand upon the knob she was startled by those hideous screams again--this time they seemed to come from the hall itself, and with a stifled exclamation Aline darted into the curtained alcove of a bay-window and let the heavy draperies of velvet and brocade fall heavily around her. She had scarcely done so before a hand turned the door-knob softly, something swished through the door, it closed again and she was conscious of an alien presence in the room. She could hear distinctly a heavy, muffled breathing, and the rustle of drapery trailed over the floor. Aline’s heart seemed beating in her throat almost to suffocation. She crouched upon the floor, her young face pale as death, her sweet eyes wild with horror of she knew not what invisible evil that was approaching her with swift, cat-like movements across the echoless floor. Was it ghost or human? she asked herself, fearfully. Crouching there, a little crumpled blue heap in the darkness, fearing to breathe lest her presence might be betrayed by even that stifled sound, Aline summoned courage to draw aside the lightest fold of the curtain to form a tiny aperture through which, herself unseen, she might see what or who had entered the darkened, dreary, deserted parlor. Curiosity, our little heroine’s besetting sin, had not deserted her yet, despite her fear and terror. She gazed fearfully through the tiny crevice in the curtain, and it was only by the exercise of a strong will power that she prevented herself from crying out aloud. A little dwarf-like, misshapen _something_, clothed in trailing garments like a woman, was approaching the alcove steadily and swiftly, as if guided by the unerring instinct of hate and murder to the hiding-place of its prey. The crooked hideous form was clothed with rich white satin and lace, all soiled and frayed as if from a terrible struggle, for there were wet and gory blood drops all spattered down the deep flounces of white lace that adorned the front breadth of the robe. Over a monstrous head, covered with rough matted locks of coarse black hair was thrown a long and splendid bridal veil of costly Brussels lace, and this, too, was soiled and tattered like the bridal robe. There was no face visible, for a mask was worn above it--a horrible mask of thick black crape; and Aline shuddered as she thought of the distorted features it hid, for the narrow slits for the eyes were not cut in a level line below the brows, but by some dreadful freak of nature the eyes of the creature were placed one below the brow, the other far down upon the cheek, and in this distorted form they glared through the holes of the mask like the yellow orbs of a tigress filled with the spirit of destruction. But these monstrous, baleful eyes were not all that struck terror to Aline’s heart as she knelt there, shuddering in the semi-darkness of the death-trap into which she had blindly rushed.