Arthur Dimmesdale gazed into Hester's face with a look of hope and joy—yet there was fear and a kind of shock at her boldness in speaking what he had hinted at but did not dare to say.
But Hester Prynne had a naturally active and courageous mind. She had been outlawed from society for so long that she had become used to a freedom of thought that was altogether foreign to the clergyman. She had wandered in a moral wilderness, without rule or guidance—a wilderness as vast, dark, and complex as the untamed forest in which they were now together. Her mind and heart were at home in uninhabited places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods. For many years now she had looked at human institutions from this isolated point of view. She criticized it all with almost as little reverence as an Indian would feel for the ministry or the judiciary, the many forms of ritual punishment, the fireside around which families gathered, or the church in which they prayed. Her fate had set her free from all. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not go. Shame, despair, and solitude had been her stern and wild teachers. They had made her strong, but they had often guided her poorly.
The minister, on the other hand, had never experienced anything to lead him beyond the scope of social authority—though he had once violated that authority quite gravely. But that had been a sin of passion, not a matter of choosing the wrong principle to follow or even of making a deliberate choice at all. Since that awful time, he had kept an obsessively close watch not only over his acts—for those were easy to control—but over each emotion and passing thought he experienced. In those days, the clergyman stood at the head of the social system. And so Mr. Dimmesdale was all the more trodden down by society's regulations, its principles, and even its prejudices. As a priest, the framework of order inevitably constrained him. As a man who had once sinned, and then kept his conscience alive and painfully sensitive by worrying over the unhealed spiritual wound, it might be the case the he was less likely to step out of line than if he had never sinned at all.
And so it seems that for Hester Prynne, her seven years of isolation and shame had only prepared her for this very moment. But Arthur Dimmesdale! If such a man were to sin again, what plea could be made to excuse his crime? None, except that he was broken down by long, intense suffering. Perhaps it could be said that any conscience would have trouble choosing between fleeing as a confessed criminal and remaining as a hypocrite. And it is only human to avoid the dangers of death and shame and the mysterious plotting of an enemy. Moreover, this poor man, wandering exhausted, sick, and miserable down his lonely, dreary path, this man had finally caught a glimpse of human affection and sympathy. He had seen a new life, a true one, which could be traded for the heavy sentence he was now serving. And, truth be told, a soul that guilt has entered can never be repaired in this life. It is like a defeated castle: It may be watched and guarded so that the enemy will not enter once again. But the ruined wall remains, and close by is the foe who wishes to triumph once again.
If there was a struggle in the clergyman's soul, it need not be described. Suffice it to say that he resolved to flee—and not alone.
"If in all these last seven years," he thought, "I could remember one instant of peace or hope, then I would remain here because of that sign of Heaven's mercy. But now, since I am doomed beyond salvation, why shouldn't I enjoy the relief allowed to the condemned criminal before he is put to death? Or if this is the path to a better life, as Hester says it is, then surely I am not giving anything up to pursue it! And I can no longer live without her companionship: Her power sustains me, and her tenderness soothes me! O God, to whom I dare not lift my eyes, will you pardon me?"
