So, she went through the
inferno of days and nights in a dreariness of suffering that was
deadly. Naturally, the life there was altogether an evil thing.
There was the material ill ever present in the round of wearisome
physical toil, the coarse, distasteful food, the hard, narrow
couch, the constant, gnawing irksomeness of imprisonment, away
from light and air, away from all that makes life worth while.
Yet, these afflictions were not the worst injuries to mar the
girl convict's life. That which bore upon her most weightily and
incessantly was the degradation of this environment from which
there was never any respite, the viciousness of this spot wherein
she had been cast through no fault of her own. Vileness was
everywhere, visibly in the faces of many, and it was brimming
from the souls of more, subtly hideous. The girl held herself
rigidly from any personal intimacy with her fellows. To some
extent, at least, she could separate herself from their
corruption in the matter of personal association. But, ever
present, there was a secret energy of vice that could not be
escaped so simply--nor, indeed, by any device; that breathed in
the spiritual atmosphere itself of the place.
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