Was she in the agony of a dream?
or was she spiritually conscious of something hidden in the room?
The doubt involved in that last question was unendurable.

Agnes determined to rouse the servants who kept watch in the hotel at night.
The bell-handle was fixed to the wall, on the side of the bed by which the table stood.
She raised herself from the crouching position which she had assumed in looking close at the Countess; and, turning towards the other side of the bed, stretched out her hand to the bell.

At the same instant, she stopped and looked upward.

Her hand fell helplessly at her side.

She shuddered, and sank back on the pillow.
What had she seen?
She had seen another intruder in her room.
Midway between her face and the ceiling, there hovered a human head--severed at the neck, like a head struck from the body by the guillotine.
Nothing visible, nothing audible, had given her any intelligible warning of its appearance.