Feeling her way, she came to the door of the room, softly entered it and walked in. Passing her hands along the walls and the familiar furnishings she found the bed and lay down upon it. Her heart beat fast with excitement but not with fear. She felt thrills of hope that the ghost would appear and thrills of apprehension lest it should! She had left the door to the hall open, and though it could scarcely be called light, there was a mitigation of the darkness near the door. A not unpleasant drowsiness overcame her, and she half slept, waking every time the clock struck in the hall. At three, she smiled to herself, realizing that she was there, in the Room with the Tassels, and felt no fear. "I hope something comes at four,----" she thought sleepily, and closed her eyes again. One--two--three--four--boomed the hall clock. Vernie opened her eyes, only half conscious, and yet able to discern a strange chill in the air. Between her and the open door stood a tall gaunt shape, merely a shadow, for it was too dark to discern details. Her calm forsook her; she shivered violently, unable to control her muscles. Her teeth chattered, her knees knocked together, and her hair seemed to rise from her head. Yet she could make no sound. Vainly she tried to scream, to shriek,--but her dry throat was constricted as with an iron band. Her eyes burned in their sockets, yet she was powerless to shut them. They seemed suddenly to possess an uncanny ability to pierce the darkness, and she saw the shape draw slowly nearer to her. Clutching the bedclothing, she tried to draw it over her head, but her paralyzed arms refused to move. Nearer, slowly nearer, the thing came, and horror reached its climax at sight of the face beneath the sheltering shawl. It was the face of a skull! The hollow eye-sockets glared at her, and lifting a deathlike hand, with long white fingers, the spectre told off one, two, three, four! on the digits. There was no sound, but a final pointing of the fearsome index finger at the stricken girl, seemed a death warrant for herself. The thing disappeared. Slowly, silently, as it had come, so it went. From nowhere to nowhere,--it evolved from the darkness and to the darkness returned. Vernie didn't faint, but she suffered excruciatingly; her head was on fire, her flesh crept and quivered, she was bathed in a cold perspiration, and her heart beat madly, wildly, as if it would burst. The vision, though gone, remained etched on her brain, and she knew that until that faded she could not move or speak. It seemed to her hours, but at last the tension lessened a little. The first move was agony, but by degrees she changed her position a trifle and moistened her dry lips. With the first faint glimmer of dawn, she dragged herself upstairs and crept into bed beside Eve Carnforth. "Tell me," begged Eve, and Vernie told her. "It was a warning," said the child, solemnly. "It means I shall die at four o'clock some morning."