In fact, her waking moments were easy when compared
with the persecution which the spirit of that man inflicted on her
during her broken and restless slumbers. The dreadful eye, as it rested
upon her, seemed as if its powerful but killing expression proceeded
from the heart and spirit of some demon who sought to wither her by
slow degrees out of life; and she felt that he was succeeding in his
murderous and merciless object. It is not to be wondered at, then,
that she dreaded the state of sleep more than any other condition of
existence in which she could find herself. As night, and the hour of
retiring to what ought to have been a refreshing rest returned, her
alarms also returned with tenfold terror; and such was her apprehension
of those fiend-like and nocturnal visits, that she entreated Sarah
Sullivan to sleep with and awaken her the moment she heard her groan or
shriek. Our readers may perceive that the innocent girl's tenure of life
could not be a long one under such strange and unexampled sufferings.
The state of her health now occasioned her parents to feel the most
serious alarm.
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