It
haunted her; it was fixed upon her, accompanied by a dreadful smile of
apparent courtesy, but of a malignity which she felt as if it penetrated
her whole being, both corporeal and mental. She hurried to bed at night
with a hope that sleep might exclude the frightful vision which followed
her; but, alas! even sleep was no security to her against its terrors.
It was now that in her distempered dreams imagination ran riot. She fled
from him, or attempted to fly, but feared that she had not strength for
the effort; he followed her, she thought, and when she covered her face
with her hands in order to avoid the sight of him, she felt him seizing
her by the wrists, and removing her arms in order that he might pour the
malignant influence of that terrible eye into her very heart. From these
scenes she generally awoke with a shriek, when her maid, Sarah Sullivan,
who of late slept in the same room with her, was obliged to come to her
assistance, and soothe and sustain her as well as she could. She then
lay for hours in such a state of terror and agitation as cannot be
described, until near morning, WHen she generally fell into something
like sound sleep.
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