“They mostly do,” said the clergyman, griping hard at his breast, as if afflicted with an importunate throb of pain.  “Many, many a poor soul hath given its confidence to me, not only on the death-bed, but while strong in life, and fair in reputation.  And ever, after such an outpouring, oh, what a relief have I witnessed in those sinful brethren! even as in one who at last draws free air, after a long stifling with his own polluted breath.  How can it be otherwise?  Why should a wretched man—­guilty, we will say, of murder—­prefer to keep the dead corpse buried in his own heart, rather than fling it forth at once, and let the universe take care of it!”

“Yet some men bury their secrets thus,” observed the calm physician.

“True; there are such men,” answered Mr. Dimmesdale.  “But not to suggest more obvious reasons, it may be that they are kept silent by the very constitution of their nature.  Or—­can we not suppose it?—­guilty as they may be, retaining, nevertheless, a zeal for God’s glory and man’s welfare, they shrink from displaying themselves black and filthy in the view of men; because, thenceforward, no good can be achieved by them; no evil of the past be redeemed by better service.  So, to their own unutterable torment, they go about among their fellow-creatures, looking pure as new-fallen snow, while their hearts are all speckled and spotted with iniquity of which they cannot rid themselves.”

“These men deceive themselves,” said Roger Chillingworth, with somewhat more emphasis than usual, and making a slight gesture with his forefinger.  “They fear to take up the shame that rightfully belongs to them.  Their love for man, their zeal for God’s service—­these holy impulses may or may not coexist in their hearts with the evil inmates to which their guilt has unbarred the door, and which must needs propagate a hellish breed within them.  But, if they seek to glorify God, let them not lift heavenward their unclean hands!  If they would serve their fellowmen, let them do it by making manifest the power and reality of conscience, in constraining them to penitential self-abasement!  Would thou have me to believe, O wise and pious friend, that a false show can be better—­can be more for God’s glory, or man’ welfare—­than God’s own truth?  Trust me, such men deceive themselves!”

“It may be so,” said the young clergyman, indifferently, as waiving a discussion that he considered irrelevant or unseasonable.  He had a ready faculty, indeed, of escaping from any topic that agitated his too sensitive and nervous temperament.—­“But, now, I would ask of my well-skilled physician, whether, in good sooth, he deems me to have profited by his kindly care of this weak frame of mine?”