“Wherefore dost thou desire it?” inquired Hester, shrinking, she hardly knew why, from this secret bond.  “Why not announce thyself openly, and cast me off at once?”

“It may be,” he replied, “because I will not encounter the dishonour that besmirches the husband of a faithless woman.  It may be for other reasons.  Enough, it is my purpose to live and die unknown.  Let, therefore, thy husband be to the world as one already dead, and of whom no tidings shall ever come.  Recognise me not, by word, by sign, by look!  Breathe not the secret, above all, to the man thou wottest of.  Shouldst thou fail me in this, beware!  His fame, his position, his life will be in my hands.  Beware!”

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

“Swear it!” rejoined he.

And she took the oath.

“And now, Mistress Prynne,” said old Roger Chillingworth, as he was hereafter to be named, “I leave thee alone:  alone with thy infant and the scarlet letter!  How is it, Hester?  Doth thy sentence bind thee to wear the token in thy sleep?  Art thou not afraid of nightmares and hideous dreams?”

“Why dost thou smile so at me?” inquired Hester, troubled at the expression of his eyes.  “Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the forest round about us?  Hast thou enticed me into a bond that will prove the ruin of my soul?”

“Not thy soul,” he answered, with another smile.  “No, not thine!”

V. HESTER AT HER NEEDLE

Hester Prynne’s term of confinement was now at an end.  Her prison-door was thrown open, and she came forth into the sunshine, which, falling on all alike, seemed, to her sick and morbid heart, as if meant for no other purpose than to reveal the scarlet letter on her breast.  Perhaps there was a more real torture in her first unattended footsteps from the threshold of the prison than even in the procession and spectacle that have been described, where she was made the common infamy, at which all mankind was summoned to point its finger.  Then, she was supported by an unnatural tension of the nerves, and by all the combative energy of her character, which enabled her to convert the scene into a kind of lurid triumph.  It was, moreover, a separate and insulated event, to occur but once in her lifetime, and to meet which, therefore, reckless of economy, she might call up the vital strength that would have sufficed for many quiet years.  The very law that condemned her—­a giant of stern features but with vigour to support, as well as to annihilate, in his iron arm—­had held her up through the terrible ordeal of her ignominy.  But now, with this unattended walk from her prison door, began the daily custom; and she must either sustain and carry it forward by the ordinary resources of her nature, or sink beneath it.  She could no longer borrow from the future to help her through the present grief.