I keep returning to it, because it reveals something about how cruelty actually operates against children, and it is not what most people imagine.

We picture the abuse of a child as force — the raised voice, the harsh punishment, the frightened compliance of a small person before a large one.

And sometimes it is that.

But the more sophisticated cruelty, the kind that leaves the deepest marks and is hardest to detect, does not work by frightening a child into submission.

It works by turning the child’s own best instincts against her.

Pamela did not make Hannah stay silent by making her afraid.