He holds her with his glittering eye.

The storm has ceased--all is still. The winds are hushed; the church
clock proclaims the hour of one: a hissing sound comes from the throat
of the hideous being, and he raises his long, gaunt arms--the lips move.
He advances. The girl places one small foot from the bed on to the
floor. She is unconsciously dragging the clothing with her. The door of
the room is in that direction--can she reach it? Has she power to
walk?--can she withdraw her eyes from the face of the intruder, and so
break the hideous charm? God of Heaven! is it real, or some dream so
like reality as to nearly overturn the judgment for ever?

The figure has paused again, and half on the bed and half out of it that
young girl lies trembling. Her long hair streams across the entire width
of the bed. As she has slowly moved along she has left it streaming
across the pillows. The pause lasted about a minute--oh, what an age of
agony. That minute was, indeed, enough for madness to do its full work
in.

With a sudden rush that could not be foreseen--with a strange howling
cry that was enough to awaken terror in every breast, the figure seized
the long tresses of her hair, and twining them round his bony hands he
held her to the bed. Then she screamed--Heaven granted her then power to
scream. Shriek followed shriek in rapid succession. The bed-clothes fell
in a heap by the side of the bed--she was dragged by her long silken
hair completely on to it again. Her beautifully rounded limbs quivered
with the agony of her soul. The glassy, horrible eyes of the figure ran
over that angelic form with a hideous satisfaction--horrible
profanation. He drags her head to the bed's edge. He forces it back by
the long hair still entwined in his grasp. With a plunge he seizes her