As he spoke, he laid his long fore-finger on the scarlet letter, which forthwith seemed to scorch into Hester’s breast, as if it had been red hot.  He noticed her involuntary gesture, and smiled.  “Live, therefore, and bear about thy doom with thee, in the eyes of men and women—­in the eyes of him whom thou didst call thy husband—­in the eyes of yonder child!  And, that thou mayest live, take off this draught.”

Without further expostulation or delay, Hester Prynne drained the cup, and, at the motion of the man of skill, seated herself on the bed, where the child was sleeping; while he drew the only chair which the room afforded, and took his own seat beside her.  She could not but tremble at these preparations; for she felt that—­having now done all that humanity, or principle, or, if so it were, a refined cruelty, impelled him to do for the relief of physical suffering—­he was next to treat with her as the man whom she had most deeply and irreparably injured.

“Hester,” said he, “I ask not wherefore, nor how thou hast fallen into the pit, or say, rather, thou hast ascended to the pedestal of infamy on which I found thee.  The reason is not far to seek.  It was my folly, and thy weakness.  I—­a man of thought—­the book-worm of great libraries—­a man already in decay, having given my best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge—­what had I to do with youth and beauty like thine own?  Misshapen from my birth-hour, how could I delude myself with the idea that intellectual gifts might veil physical deformity in a young girl’s fantasy?  Men call me wise.  If sages were ever wise in their own behoof, I might have foreseen all this.  I might have known that, as I came out of the vast and dismal forest, and entered this settlement of Christian men, the very first object to meet my eyes would be thyself, Hester Prynne, standing up, a statue of ignominy, before the people.  Nay, from the moment when we came down the old church-steps together, a married pair, I might have beheld the bale-fire of that scarlet letter blazing at the end of our path!”

“Thou knowest,” said Hester—­for, depressed as she was, she could not endure this last quiet stab at the token of her shame—­“thou knowest that I was frank with thee.  I felt no love, nor feigned any.”

“True,” replied he.  “It was my folly!  I have said it.  But, up to that epoch of my life, I had lived in vain.  The world had been so cheerless!  My heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill, and without a household fire.  I longed to kindle one!  It seemed not so wild a dream—­old as I was, and sombre as I was, and misshapen as I was—­that the simple bliss, which is scattered far and wide, for all mankind to gather up, might yet be mine.  And so, Hester, I drew thee into my heart, into its innermost chamber, and sought to warm thee by the warmth which thy presence made there!”

“I have greatly wronged thee,” murmured Hester.