A few doors beyond this the houses reach the climax of desolate
disorder. The whole place is tumbling down; the window is broken; the
battered door is off its hinges, propped up against the wall. A cripple
girl is sitting on a broken box, turned upside down, immediately outside
this miserable hovel. Her face is a greater shock to Hazel than any of
the other wretchedness around. There is a desperation of bitterness in
that set, white face, with its hollow eyes and cheeks, which is
absolutely appalling. Hazel had always imagined that suffering must of
necessity, by its own inherent nature, bring with it a patience which
would be reflected in a sweet face. Slowly, as she scans those immovable
features, full of pain, and still more full of dogged rebellion, this
idea has to be abandoned. Here obviously is a human being in the midst
of a noisy squalor, whose physical disease and torture is unlightened by
one softening ray of hope; whose misery is too sullen and dull to rise
even to the hope of putting an end to itself.
One moment and the deformed girl starts apprehensively.
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