Hester Prynne kept her place upon the pedestal of shame with an air of weary indifference.  With the same hard demeanour she was led back to prison.

That night the child at her boson writhed in convulsions of pain, and the jailer brought in a physician, whom he announced as Mr. Roger Chillingworth, and who was none other than the stranger whom Hester had noticed in the crowd.

He took the infant in his arms and administered a draught, and its moans and convulsive tossings gradually ceased.

“Hester,” said he, when the jailer had withdrawn, “I ask not wherefore thou hast fallen into the pit.  It was my folly and thy weakness.  What had I—­a man of thought, the bookworm of great libraries—­to do with youth and beauty like thine own?  I might have known that in my long absence this would happen.”

“I have greatly wronged thee,” murmured Hester.

“We have wronged each other,” he answered.  “But I shall seek this man whose name thou wilt not reveal, as I seek truth in books, and sooner or later he must needs be mine.  I shall contrive naught against his life.  Let him live!  Not the less shall he be mine.  One thing, thou that wast my wife, I ask.  Thou hast kept his name secret.  Keep, likewise, mine.  Let thy husband be to the world as one already dead, and breathe not the secret, above all, to the man thou wottest of?”

“I will keep thy secret, as I have his.”

II.—­A Pearl of Great Price

When her prison-door was thrown open, and she came forth into the sunshine, Hester Prynne did not flee.

On the outskirts of the town was a small thatched cottage, and there, in this lonesome dwelling, Hester established herself with her infant child.  Without a friend on earth who dared to show himself, she, however, incurred no risk of want.  She possessed an art that sufficed to supply food for her thriving infant and herself—­the art of needlework.

By degrees her handiwork became what would now be termed the fashion.  She bore on her breast, in the curiously embroidered letter, a specimen of her skill, and her needlework was seen on the ruff of the governor; military men wore it on their scarfs, and the minister on his bands.

As time went on, the public attitude to Hester changed.  Human nature, to its credit, loves more readily than it hates.  Hester never battled with the public, but submitted uncomplainingly to its worst usage, and so a species of general regard had ultimately grown up in reference to her.

Hester had named the infant “Pearl,” as being of great price, and little Pearl grew up a wondrously lovely child, with a strange, lawless character.  At times she seemed rather an airy sprite than human, and never did she seek to make acquaintance with other children, but was always Hester’s companion in her walks about the town.

At one time some of the leading inhabitants of the place sought to deprive Hester of her child; and at the governor’s mansion, whither Hester had repaired, with some gloves which she had embroidered at his order, the matter was discussed in the mother’s presence by the governor and his guests—­Mr. John Wilson, Mr. Arthur Dimmesdale, and old Roger Chillingworth, now established as a physician of great skill in the town.