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!"

With a convulsive motion he tore away the ministerial gown from before
his breast. It was revealed! For an instant the multitude gazed with
horror on the ghastly miracle, while the minister stood with a flush of
triumph in his face. Then, down he sank upon the scaffold. Hester partly
raised him, and supported his head against her bosom. Old Roger
Chillingworth knelt beside him.

"Thou hast escaped me!" he repeated more than once.

"May God forgive thee!" said the minister. "Thou, too, hast deeply
sinned!"

He fixed his dying eyes on the woman and the child.

"My little Pearl," he said feebly, "thou wilt kiss me. Hester, farewell.
God knows, and He is merciful! His will be done! Farewell."

That final word came forth with the minister's expiring breath. The
multitude, silent till then, broke out in a strange, deep voice of awe
and wonder.

* * * * *

After many days there was more than one account of what had been
witnessed on the scaffold. Most of the spectators testified to having
seen, on the breast of the unhappy minister, a scarlet letter imprinted
in the flesh. Others denied that there was any mark whatever on his
breast, more than on a new-born infant's. According to these highly
respectable witnesses the minister's confession implied no part of the
guilt of Hester Prynne, but was to teach us that we were all sinners
alike. Old Roger Chillingworth died and bequeathed his property to
little Pearl.

For years the mother and child lived in England, and then Pearl married,
and He