ian;--then, at some inevitable
moment, will the soul of the sufferer be dissolved, and flow forth in
a dark, but transparent stream, bringing all its mysteries into the
daylight.

Roger Chillingworth possessed all, or most, of the attributes above
enumerated. Nevertheless, time went on; a kind of intimacy, as we have
said, grew up between these two cultivated minds, which had as wide a
field as the whole sphere of human thought and study, to meet upon;
they discussed every topic of ethics and religion, of public affairs
and private character; they talked much, on both sides, of matters
that seemed personal to themselves; and yet no secret, such as the
physician fancied must exist there, ever stole out of the minister's
consciousness into his companion's ear. The latter had his suspicions,
indeed, that even the nature of Mr. Dimmesdale's bodily disease had
never fairly been revealed to him. It was a strange reserve!

After a time, at a hint from Roger Chillingworth, the friends of Mr.
Dimmesdale effected an arrangement by which the two were lodged in the
same house; so that every ebb and flow of the minister's life-tide
might pass under the eye of his anxious and attached physician. There
was much joy throughout the town, when this greatly desirable object
was attained. It was held to be the best possible measure for the
young clergyman's welfare; unless, indeed, as often urged by such as
felt authorized to do so, he had selected some one of the many
blooming damsels, spiritually devoted to him, to become his devoted
wife. This latter step, however, there was no present prospect that
Arthur Dimmesdale would be prevailed upon to take; he rejected all
suggestions of the kind, as if priestly celibacy were one of his
articles of church-discipline. Doomed by his own choice, therefore, as
Mr. Dimmesdale so evidently was, to eat his unsavory morsel always at
another's board, and endure the life-long chill which must be his lot
who seeks to warm himself only at another's fireside, it truly seemed
that this sagacious, experienced, benevolent old physician, with his
concord of paternal and reverential love for the young pastor, was the
very man, of all mankind, to be constantly within reach of his voice.

The new abode of the two friends was with a pious widow, of good
social rank, who dwelt in a house covering pretty nearly the site on
which the venerable structure of King's Chapel has since been built.
It had the graveyard, o