"We have wronged each other," answered he.
"I have greatly wronged thee," murmured Hester. 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! 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. 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. But, up to that epoch of my life, I had lived in vain. "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. 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!" 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. If sages were ever wise in their own behoof, I might have foreseen all this. the a man of thought, 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. 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. 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. 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 be side her.
Child! And, that thou mayest live, take off this draught."