I seemed to feel a hot breath on my cheek, and with a wild shriek I woke, to find the moonlight streaming in through the broad diamond-paned window, falling in a white shaft across the floor, while the last embers of the fire were smoldering to ashes upon the hearth.
"I sat up in bed with that feeling of broad awakeness and alertness which comes to us sometimes, and caught my breath as I listened, for through the stillness of the night came the unmistakable sound of a gentle tapping from behind the paneling of the wall.

It was not continuous, but more as one might rap at the chamber door of a sleeping person, waiting every now and then to hear if one had obtained a response.

An intense and vivid sensation came over me that I was not alone in the room; that there was some presence other than my own personality which was striving in some way to force itself upon my consciousness and arrest my attention.

Was it only my fancy, or were the moonbeams actually shaping themselves into a human form, till against the dark background of the fireplace, I seemed to see the misty shadowy outline of a figure, so vague and ethereal that even as I looked it appeared to melt again into the moonlight and cease to exist?
"With every nerve on the stretch I strained my eyes to gain a clearer impression.

A passing cloud left the room for a few moments in darkness, but, as the beams shone out full and clear once more, that shadowy figure seemed to gather substance, and I felt as if some unknown force were compelling my attention and chaining my every sense in a mute endeavor to establish some chord of connection between me and the dim spirit world which floats forever round us.