A new thought had struck him. There might be a moment's
peace in it. Attiring himself with as much care as if it had
been for public worship, and precisely in the same manner, he
stole softly down the staircase, undid the door, and issued
forth.
XII. THE MINISTER'S VIGIL
Walking in the shadow of a dream, as it were, and perhaps
actually under the influence of a species of somnambulism, Mr.
Dimmesdale reached the spot where, now so long since, Hester
Prynne had lived through her first hours of public ignominy. The
same platform or scaffold, black and weather-stained with the
storm or sunshine of seven long years, and foot-worn, too, with
the tread of many culprits who had since ascended it, remained
standing beneath the balcony of the meeting-house. The minister
went up the steps.
It was an obscure night in early May. An unvaried pall of
cloud muffled the whole expanse of sky from zenith to horizon.
If the same multitude which had stood as eye-witnesses while
Hester Prynne sustained her punishment could now have been
summoned forth, they would have discerned no face above the
platform nor hardly the outline of a human shape, in the dark
grey of the midnight.
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