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In such emergencies, Hester's nature showed itself warm and rich; a well-spring of human tenderness, unfailing to every real demand, and inexhaustible by the largest. Her breast, with its badge of shame, was but the softer pillow for the head that needed one.
Such friendly confidence had Philip in Hester's willingness and tender skill. Sylvia acquiesced at length, and Philip took upon himself to speak to Hester on the subject. 'Hester, said he, one day when he was preparing to go home after the shop was closed; 'would yo' mind stopping a bit?
"All right, Cousin Jack," said Midget, "we'll do as you say. Come on, boys, let's race down to the beach!" The children ran away, and after a consultation with Mrs. Maynard, Mr. Bryant set out to make a call on Mrs. Corey. His was not a pleasant task, but he felt it his duty to tell her frankly of Hester's behavior, and to say that Mr. and Mrs.
It appalled her, nevertheless, to discern here, again, a shadowy reflection of the evil that had existed in herself. All this enmity and passion had Pearl inherited, by inalienable right, out of Hester's heart.
She bestowed abundance of tears, tremors, and foreboding on Mrs Howell's state and prospects, but shut herself up in a fumigated apartment, where she promised to pray for a good result, and to await it. The maid was a hearty lass, who would sit up willingly, under Hester's promise that she should be relieved in the morning.
One moment's thought of freedom, one moment's thought of Margaret convulsed his soul; but before he could speak the tempest had passed away. Hester's face, frightfully agitated, was upraised: his countenance seemed heavenly to her when he smiled upon her, and replied "I will not. You are mine; and, as I said before, all our failures, all our heart-sickness, must bind us the more to each other."
She had done wrong; but on the other hand, she had done what she could to make matters right. It pleased her even now to know that she had asked Hester's forgiveness and had believed in her, before the proofs of her innocence came to hand. It is a worthless sort of faith and a poor friendship which needs evidence at hand. Faith is faith only when it believes without proof, or against proof.
But Hester's lethargy lasted long, and was not so removed. She rose from her knees in a kind of despair, almost ready to think that either there was no God, or he would not hear her. An inaccessible God was worse than no God at all! In either case she would rather cease! It had been dark for hours, but she had lighted no candle, and sat in bodily as in spiritual darkness.
And she made as though she would have passed; but Sylvia, all her sympathies alive for the relations of the murdered man, wanted to ask more questions, and put her hand on Hester's arm to detain her a moment. Hester suddenly drew back a little, reddened still more, and then replied fully and quietly to all Sylvia asked.
Such were some of the thoughts that now stirred in Hester's mind, with as much vivacity of impression as if they had actually been whispered into her ear. And there was little Pearl, all this while, holding her mother's hand in both her own, and turning her face upward, while she put these searching questions, once and again, and still a third time.
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