The Scarlet Letter

The scarlet letter had not done its office. Now, however, her

interview with the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the night of his

vigil, had given her a new theme of reflection, and held up to

her an object that appeared worthy of any exertion and sacrifice

for its attainment. She had witnessed the intense misery beneath

which the minister struggled, or, to speak more accurately, had

ceased to struggle. She saw that he stood on the verge of

lunacy, if he had not already stepped across it. It was

impossible to doubt that, whatever painful efficacy there might

be in the secret sting of remorse, a deadlier venom had been

infused into it by the hand that proffered relief. A secret

enemy had been continually by his side, under the semblance of a

friend and helper, and had availed himself of the opportunities

thus afforded for tampering with the delicate springs of Mr.

Dimmesdale's nature. Hester could not but ask herself whether

there had not originally been a defect of truth, courage, and

loyalty on her own part, in allowing the minister to be thrown

into a position where so much evil was to be foreboded and nothing

auspicious to be hoped. Her only justification lay in the fact

that she had been able to discern no method of rescuing him from

a blacker ruin than had overwhelmed herself except by

acquiescing in Roger Chillingworth's scheme of disguise. Under

that impulse she had made her choice, and had chosen, as it now

appeared, the more wretched alternative of the two. She

determined to redeem her error so far as it might yet be

possible. Strengthened by years of hard and solemn trial, she

felt herself no longer so inadequate to cope with Roger

Chillingworth as on that night, abased by sin and half-maddened

by the ignominy that was still new, when they had talked

together in the prison-chamber. She had climbed her way since

then to a higher point. The old man, on the other hand, had

brought himself nearer to her level, or, perhaps, below it, by

the revenge which he had stooped for.

In fine, Hester Prynne resolved to meet her former husband, and

do what might be in her power for the rescue of the victim on

whom he had so evidently set his gripe. The occasion was not

long to seek. One afternoon, walking with Pearl in a retired

part of the peninsula, she beheld the old physician with a

basket on one arm and a staff in the other hand, stooping along

the ground in quest of roots and herbs to concoct his medicine

withal.