"And what am I now?" demanded he, looking into her face, and permitting the
whole evil within him to be written on his features. "I have already told
thee what I am! A fiend! Who made me so?"
"It was myself!" cried Hester, shuddering. "It was I, not less than he. Why
hast thou not avenged thyself on me?"
"I have left thee to the scarlet letter," replied Roger Chillingworth. "If
that have not avenged me, I can do no more!"
He laid his finger on it, with a smile.
"It has avenged thee!" answered Hester Prynne.
"I judged no less," said the physician. "And now, what wouldst thou with me
touching this man?"
"I must reveal the secret," answered Hester, firmly. "He must discern thee
in thy true character. What may be the result, I know not. But this long
debt of confidence, due from me to him, whose bane and ruin I have been,
shall at length be paid. So far as concerns the overthrow or preservation
of his fair fame and his earthly state, and perchance his life, he is in
thy hands. Nor do I,--whom the scarlet letter has disciplined to truth,
though it be the truth of red-hot iron, entering into the soul,--nor do I
perceive such advantage in his living any longer a life of ghastly
emptiness, that I shall stoop to implore thy mercy. Do with him as thou
wilt! There is no good for him,--no good for me,--no good for thee! There
is no good for little Pearl! There is no path to guide us out of this
dismal maze!"
"Woman, I could wellnigh pity thee!" said Roger Chillingworth, unable to
restrain a thrill of admiration too; for there was a quality almost
majestic in the despair which she expressed. "Thou hadst great elements.
Peradventure, hadst thou met earlier with a better love than mine, this
evil had not been. I pity thee, for the good that has been wasted in thy
nature!"
