The Scarlet Letter

He had by this time reached his dwelling on the edge of the

burial ground, and, hastening up the stairs, took refuge in his

study. The minister was glad to have reached this shelter,

without first betraying himself to the world by any of those

strange and wicked eccentricities to which he had been

continually impelled while passing through the streets. He

entered the accustomed room, and looked around him on its books,

its windows, its fireplace, and the tapestried comfort of the

walls, with the same perception of strangeness that had haunted

him throughout his walk from the forest dell into the town and

thitherward. Here he had studied and written; here gone through

fast and vigil, and come forth half alive; here striven to pray;

here borne a hundred thousand agonies! There was the Bible, in

its rich old Hebrew, with Moses and the Prophets speaking to

him, and God's voice through all.

There on the table, with the inky pen beside it, was an

unfinished sermon, with a sentence broken in the midst, where

his thoughts had ceased to gush out upon the page two days

before. He knew that it was himself, the thin and white-cheeked

minister, who had done and suffered these things, and written

thus far into the Election Sermon! But he seemed to stand apart,

and eye this former self with scornful pitying, but half-envious

curiosity. That self was gone. Another man had returned out of

the forest--a wiser one--with a knowledge of hidden mysteries

which the simplicity of the former never could have reached. A

bitter kind of knowledge that!

While occupied with these reflections, a knock came at the door

of the study, and the minister said, "Come in!"--not wholly

devoid of an idea that he might behold an evil spirit. And so he

did! It was old Roger Chillingworth that entered. The minister

stood white and speechless, with one hand on the Hebrew

Scriptures, and the other spread upon his breast.

"Welcome home, reverend sir," said the physician "And how found

you that godly man, the Apostle Eliot? But methinks, dear sir,

you look pale, as if the travel through the wilderness had been

too sore for you. Will not my aid be requisite to put you in

heart and strength to preach your Election Sermon?"

"Nay, I think not so," rejoined the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. "My

journey, and the sight of the holy Apostle yonder, and the free

air which I have breathed have done me good, after so long

confinement in my study. I think to need no more of your drugs,

my kind physician, good though they be, and administered by a

friendly hand."

All this time Roger Chillingworth was looking at the minister

with the grave and intent regard of a physician towards his

patient. But, in spite of this outward show, the latter was

almost convinced of the old man's knowledge, or, at least, his

confident suspicion, with respect to his own interview with

Hester Prynne. The physician knew then that in the minister's

regard he was no longer a trusted friend, but his bitterest

enemy. So much being known, it would appear natural that a part

of it should be expressed. It is singular, however, how long a

time often passes before words embody things; and with what

security two persons, who choose to avoid a certain subject, may

approach its very verge, and retire without disturbing it. Thus

the minister felt no apprehension that Roger Chillingworth would

touch, in express words, upon the real position which they

sustained towards one another. Yet did the physician, in his

dark way, creep frightfully near the secret.