!" said he, with tremulous solemnity. "The law we
broke!--the sin here so awfully revealed!--let these alone be in thy
thoughts! I fear! I fear! It may be, that, when we forgot our
God,--when we violated our reverence each for the other's soul,--it
was thenceforth vain to hope that we could meet hereafter, in an
everlasting and pure reunion. God knows; and He is merciful! He hath
proved his mercy, most of all, in my afflictions. By giving me this
burning torture to bear upon my breast! By sending yonder dark and
terrible old man, to keep the torture always at red-heat! By bringing
me hither, to die this death of triumphant ignominy before the people!
Had either of these agonies been wanting, I had been lost forever!
Praised be his name! His will be done! Farewell!"

That final word came forth with the minister's expiring breath. The
multitude, silent till then, broke out in a strange, deep voice of awe
and wonder, which could not as yet find utterance, save in this murmur
that rolled so heavily after the departed spirit.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

XXIV.

CONCLUSION.

After many days, when time sufficed for the people to arrange their
thoughts in reference to the foregoing scene, there was more than one
account of what had been witnessed on the scaffold.

Most of the spectators testified to having seen, on the breast of the
unhappy minister, a SCARLET LETTER--the very semblance of that worn by
Hester Prynne--imprinted in the flesh. As regarded its origin, there
were various explanations, all of which must necessarily have been
conjectural. Some affirmed that the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the
very day when Hester Prynne first wore her ignominious badge, had
begun a course of penance,--which he afterwards, in so many futile
methods, followed out,--by inflicting a hideous torture on himself.
Others contended that the stigma had not been produced until a long
time subsequent, when old Roger Chillingworth, being a potent
necromancer, had caused it to appear, through the agency of magic and
poisonous drugs. Others, again,--and those best able to appreciate
the minister's peculiar sensibility, and the wonderful operation of
his spirit upon the body,--whispered their belief, that the awful
symbol was the effect of the ever-active tooth of remorse, gnawing
from the inmost heart outwardly, and at last manifesting Heav