“It cannot be!” answered the minister,
listening as if he were called upon to realise a dream.
“I am powerless to go. Wretched and sinful
as I am, I have had no other thought than to drag on
my earthly existence in the sphere where Providence
hath placed me. Lost as my own soul is, I would
still do what I may for other human souls! I
dare not quit my post, though an unfaithful sentinel,
whose sure reward is death and dishonour, when his
dreary watch shall come to an end!”
“Thou art crushed under this seven years’
weight of misery,” replied Hester, fervently
resolved to buoy him up with her own energy.
“But thou shalt leave it all behind thee!
It shall not cumber thy steps, as thou treadest along
the forest-path: neither shalt thou freight the
ship with it, if thou prefer to cross the sea.
Leave this wreck and ruin here where it hath happened.
Meddle no more with it! Begin all anew!
Hast thou exhausted possibility in the failure of
this one trial? Not so! The future is yet
full of trial and success. There is happiness
to be enjoyed! There is good to be done!
Exchange this false life of thine for a true one.
Be, if thy spirit summon thee to such a mission,
the teacher and apostle of the red men. Or, as
is more thy nature, be a scholar and a sage among the
wisest and the most renowned of the cultivated world.
Preach! Write! Act! Do anything,
save to lie down and die! Give up this name of
Arthur Dimmesdale, and make thyself another, and a
high one, such as thou canst wear without fear or
shame. Why shouldst thou tarry so much as one
other day in the torments that have so gnawed into
thy life? that have made thee feeble to will and to
do? that will leave thee powerless even to repent?
Up, and away!”
“Oh, Hester!” cried Arthur Dimmesdale,
in whose eyes a fitful light, kindled by her enthusiasm,
flashed up and died away, “thou tellest of running
a race to a man whose knees are tottering beneath
him! I must die here! There is not the
strength or courage left me to venture into the wide,
strange, difficult world alone!”
It was the last expression of the despondency of a
broken spirit. He lacked energy to grasp the
better fortune that seemed within his reach.
He repeated the word—“Alone, Hester!”
“Thou shall not go alone!” answered she,
in a deep whisper. Then, all was spoken!
XVIII. A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE
Arthur Dimmesdale gazed into Hester’s face with
a look in which hope and joy shone out, indeed, but
with fear betwixt them, and a kind of horror at her
boldness, who had spoken what he vaguely hinted at,
but dared not speak.
