The house door was open; and when he turned that way next, he looked
easily into the passage, over the heads of the people in front of him.
The sight that met his eyes should have been shielded in pity from the
observation of the street. He saw a slatternly girl, with a frightened
face, standing by an old chair placed in the middle of the passage,
and holding a woman on the chair, too weak and helpless to support
herself--a woman apparently in the last stage of illness, who was about
to be removed, when the dispute outside was ended, in one of the cabs.
Her head was drooping when he first saw her, and an old shawl which
covered it had fallen forward so as to hide the upper part of her face.
Before he could look away again, the girl in charge of her raised her
head and restored the shawl to its place. The action disclosed her face
to view, for an instant only, before her head drooped once more on her
bosom. In that instant he saw the woman whose beauty was the haunting
remembrance of his life--whose image had been vivid in his mind not five
minutes since.
The shock of the double recognition--the recognition, at the same
moment, of the face, and of the dreadful change in it--struck him
speechless and helpless.
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