diff --git a/modules/Bio/EnsEMBL/RepeatMaskedSlice.pm b/modules/Bio/EnsEMBL/RepeatMaskedSlice.pm
index 92d97e545d15fcad0f257bf40cc0e4dded27e171..6ae8e12eb2ab02de57e4245ff13180458e16f26f 100644
--- a/modules/Bio/EnsEMBL/RepeatMaskedSlice.pm
+++ b/modules/Bio/EnsEMBL/RepeatMaskedSlice.pm
@@ -296,10 +296,9 @@ sub subseq {
   }
   
   #
-  # mask the dna
+  # No need to mask sequence, seq() already does it for the new subsequence_slice
   #
-  my $dna = $subsequence_slice->seq();
-  return $dna;
+  return $subsequence_slice->seq();
 }
 
 1;