about four o'clock in the morning
I said , ` Mary , ' but no answer came , only a rustling of clothes and a breathing at the other side of the gallery , which passed off towards the upper staircase . I turned into my room , freezing with horror , and clapt my door . The noise wakened Mary Quince , who had returned and gone to her bed half an hour before . About a fortnight after this , Mary Quince , a very veracious spinster , reported to me , that having got up to fix the window , which was rattling , at about four o'clock in the morning , she saw a light shining from the library window . She could swear to its being a strong light , streaming through the chinks of the shutter , and moving . No doubt the link was waved about his head by the angry ` link-man . ' These strange occurrences helped , I think , just then to make me nervous , and prepared the way for the odd sort of ascendency which , through my sense of the mysterious and super-natural , that repulsive Frenchwoman was gradually , and it seemed without effort , establishing over me .