But a lie is never good, even though
death threaten on the other side! Dost thou not see what I would
say? That old man!--the physician!--he whom they call Roger
Chillingworth!--he was my husband!"
The minister looked at her for an instant, with all that
violence of passion, which--intermixed in more shapes than one
with his higher, purer, softer qualities--was, in fact, the
portion of him which the devil claimed, and through which he
sought to win the rest. Never was there a blacker or a fiercer
frown than Hester now encountered. For the brief space that it
lasted, it was a dark transfiguration. But his character had
been so much enfeebled by suffering, that even its lower
energies were incapable of more than a temporary struggle. He
sank down on the ground, and buried his face in his hands.
"I might have known it," murmured he--"I did know it! Was not
the secret told me, in the natural recoil of my heart at the
first sight of him, and as often as I have seen him since? Why
did I not understand? Oh, Hester Prynne, thou little, little
knowest all the horror of this thing! And the shame!--the
indelicacy!--the horrible ugliness of this exposure of a sick
and guilty heart to the very eye that would gloat over it!
Woman, woman, thou art accountable for this!--I cannot forgive
thee!"
"Thou shalt forgive me!" cried Hester, flinging herself on the
fallen leaves beside him.
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