For,
as our good Governor Winthrop was made an angel this past night,
it was doubtless held fit that there should be some notice
thereof!"
"No," answered the minister; "I had not heard of it."
XIII. ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER
In her late singular interview with Mr. Dimmesdale, Hester
Prynne was shocked at the condition to which she found the
clergyman reduced. His nerve seemed absolutely destroyed. His
moral force was abased into more than childish weakness. It
grovelled helpless on the ground, even while his intellectual
faculties retained their pristine strength, or had perhaps
acquired a morbid energy, which disease only could have given
them. With her knowledge of a train of circumstances hidden from
all others, she could readily infer that, besides the legitimate
action of his own conscience, a terrible machinery had been
brought to bear, and was still operating, on Mr. Dimmesdale's
well-being and repose. Knowing what this poor fallen man had
once been, her whole soul was moved by the shuddering terror
with which he had appealed to her--the outcast woman--for
support against his instinctively discovered enemy.
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