led, 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 medicines withal.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

XIV.

HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN.

Hester bade little Pearl run down to the margin of the water, and play
with the shells and tangled sea-weed, until she should have talked
awhile with yonder gatherer of herbs.