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.