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The scarlet letter had not done its office.
Now, however, her interview with the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale,
on the night of his vigil, had given her a new
theme of reflection, and held up to her an object that appeared
worthy of any exertion and sacrifice for its attainment. She had
witnessed the intense misery beneath which the minister
struggled, or, to speak more accurately, had ceased to struggle.
She saw that he stood on the verge of lunacy, if he had not
already stepped across it. It was impossible to doubt that,
whatever painful efficacy there might be in the secret sting of
remorse, a deadlier venom had been infused into it by the hand
that proffered relief. A secret enemy had been continually by
his side, under the semblance of a friend and helper, and had
availed himself of the opportunities thus afforded for tampering
with the delicate springs of Mr. Dimmesdale's nature. Hester
could not but ask herself whether there had not originally been a
defect of truth, courage, and loyalty on her own part, in
allowing the minister to be thrown into position where so much
evil was to be foreboded and nothing auspicious to be hoped. Her
only justification lay in the fact that she had been able to
discern no method of rescuing him from a blacker ruin than had
overwhelmed herself except by acquiescing in Roger
Chillingworth's scheme of disguise. Under that impulse she had
made her choice, and had chosen, as it now appeared, the more
wretched alternative of the two. She determined to redeem her
error so far as it might yet be possible. Strengthened by years
of hard and solemn trial, she felt herself no longer so
inadequate to cope with Roger Chillingworth as on that night,
abased by sin and half-maddened by the ignominy
that was still new, when they had talked together in the
prison-chamber. She had climbed her way since then to a higher
point. The old man, on the other hand, had brought himself
nearer to her level, or, perhaps, below it, by the revenge which
he had stooped for.
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