“Yes, I believe so,” answered the reverend. “But what I really want to talk about right
now is my health. What is your judgment as to the cause of my chronic ailment?”
“frankly speaking,” said the doctor, “I want to know if you any secrets you’re failing to tell me. Have you told me everything about your problems?
This probing line of questioning visibly flustered the reverend. “But . . . of course I have,” he stammered. “Of course there are parts of my soul I could never expose to an earthly doctor.”
“But how can I cure your body if you have not laid open your mind and soul?”
At this, the reverend suddenly became fiercely angry and shoved the doctor’s hands away from him. With a frantic gesture, he stormed out of the room.
Within a couple of hours. The reverend returned to the doctor’s laboratory and apologized for his outburst. The two resumed their friendship effortlessly. But later that day, while the reverend slept in his chair, the doctor crept silently into his room. Putting his hand on the sleeping man’s chest, the doctor pushed back the reverend’s shirt and looked at his bare chest.
The doctor shuddered for moment at what he saw. Then a devilish look of happiness and satisfaction crept his face.
After this day, the relationship between Roger Chillingworth and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale changed subtly. The doctor maintained his calm appearance. But planning to take reverend on him.
Dimmesdale often punished himself secretly for the crime he had committed. He would force himself to go without food and sleep, and would even whip himself until he was bloody. Then one night he thought of a new method for self-punishment. In the middle of the night, he got dressed and quietly left the house.
As if he were walking through a dream, the reverend went to the western end of the marketplace, to the scaffolding where Hester Prynne had stood seven years earlier.
On that dark May night, the reverend climbed the steps of the scaffolding and stood on the platform atop it. He felt that the town was asleep and that there was no danger of anyone discovering him.