“Arthur Dimmesdale!  Arthur Dimmesdale!” she cried out.

“Who speaks?” answered the minister.  “Hester!  Hester Prynne!  Is it thou?” He fixed his eyes upon her and added, “Hester, hast thou found peace?”

“Hast thou?” she asked.

“None!  Nothing but despair!  What else could I look for, being what I am, and leading such a life as mine?”

“You wrong yourself in this,” said Hester gently.  “Your sin is left behind you, in the days long past.  But Arthur, an enemy dwellest with thee, under the same roof.  That old man—­the physician, whom they call Roger Chillingworth—­he was my husband!  Forgive me.  Let God punish!”

“I do forgive you, Hester,” replied the minister.  “May God forgive us both!”

They sat down, hand clasped in hand, on the mossy trunk of a fallen tree.

It was Hester who bade him hope, and spoke of seeking a new life beyond the seas, in some rural village in Europe.

“Oh, Hester,” cried Arthur Dimmesdale, “I lack the strength and courage to venture out into the wide, strange world alone.”

“Thou shalt not go alone!” she whispered.  Before Mr. Dimmesdale reached home he was conscious of a change of thought and feeling; Roger Chillingworth observed the change, and knew that now in the minister’s regard he was no longer a trusted friend, but his bitterest enemy.

A New England holiday was at hand, the public celebration of the election of a new governor, and the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale was to preach the election sermon.

Hester had taken berths in a vessel that was about to sail; and then, on the very day of holiday, the shipmaster told her that Roger Chillingworth had also taken a berth in the same vessel.

Hester said nothing, but turned away, and waited in the crowded market-place beside the pillory with Pearl, while the procession re-formed after public worship.  The street and the market-place absolutely bubbled with applause of the minister, whose sermon had surpassed all previous utterances.

At that moment Arthur Dimmesdale stood on the proudest eminence to which a New England clergyman could be exalted.  The minister, surrounded by the leading men of the town, halted at the scaffold, and, turning towards it, cried, “Hester, come hither!  Come, my little Pearl!”

Leaning on Hester’s shoulder, the minister, with the child’s hand in his, slowly ascended the scaffold steps.

“Is not this better,” he murmured, “than what we dreamed of in the forest?  For, Hester, I am a dying man.  So let me make haste to take my shame upon me.”

“I know not.  I know not.”

“Better?  Yea; so we may both die, and little Pearl die with us.”

He turned to the market-place and spoke with a voice that all could hear.

“People of New England!  At last, at last I stand where seven years since I should have stood.  Lo, the scarlet letter which Hester wears!  Ye have all shuddered at it!  But there stood one in the midst of you, at whose hand of sin and infamy ye have not shuddered!  Stand any here that question God’s judgement on a sinner?  Behold a dreadful witness of it!”