Chapter 18 A Flet 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.

But Hester Prin, with a mind of native courage and activity, and for so long a period not

merely estranged, but outlawed from society, had abituated herself to such latitude

of speculation as was altogether foreign to the clergyman.

She had wandered without rule or guidance in immoral wilderness, as vast, as intricate

and shadowy, as the untamed forest, amid the gloom of which they were now holding a

coliqui that was to decide their fate.

Her intellect and heart had their home as it were in desert places, nor she roamed as

freely as the wild Indian in his woods.

For years past she had looked from the estranged point of view at human institutions, and whatever

priests or legislators that established, criticizing all with hardly more reverence than the Indian

would feel for the clerical band, the judicial robe, the pillory, the gallows, the fireside

or the church.

The tendency of her fate and fortunes had been to set her free.

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread.

Shame to spare solitude.

These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught

her much a miss.

The minister, on the other hand, had never gone through an experience calculated to lead

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