By means of them, the sufferer's conscience had
been kept in an irritated state, the tendency of which was, not
to cure by wholesome pain, but to disorganize and corrupt his
spiritual being. Its result, on earth, could hardly fail to be
insanity, and hereafter, that eternal alienation from the Good
and True, of which madness is perhaps the earthly type.
Such was the ruin to which she had brought the man, once--nay,
why should we not speak it?--still so passionately loved! Hester
felt that the sacrifice of the clergyman's good name, and death
itself, as she had already told Roger Chillingworth, would have
been infinitely preferable to the alternative which she had
taken upon herself to choose. And now, rather than have had this
grievous wrong to confess, she would gladly have laid down on
the forest leaves, and died there, at Arthur Dimmesdale's feet.
"Oh, Arthur!" cried she, "forgive me! In all things else, I
have striven to be true! Truth was the one virtue which I might
have held fast, and did hold fast, through all extremity; save
when thy good--thy life--thy fame--were put in question! Then I
consented to a deception.
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