"Come," said he, waving his hand towards her. "You are safe!"
She threw off the veil, and stood before that multitude of people pale,
tremulous, shrinking, as if only then had she discovered that a
thousand eyes were gazing at her. Poor maiden! How strangely had she
been betrayed! Blazoned abroad as a wonder of the world, and
performing what were adjudged as miracles,--in the faith of many, a
seeress and a prophetess; in the harsher judgment of others, a
mountebank,--she had kept, as I religiously believe, her virgin reserve
and sanctity of soul throughout it all. Within that encircling veil,
though an evil hand had flung it over her, there was as deep a
seclusion as if this forsaken girl had, all the while, been sitting
under the shadow of Eliot's pulpit, in the Blithedale woods, at the
feet of him who now summoned her to the shelter of his arms. And the
true heart-throb of a woman's affection was too powerful for the
jugglery that had hitherto environed her. She uttered a shriek, and
fled to Hollingsworth, like one escaping from her deadliest enemy, and
was safe forever.