One sleepless summer night, seven years from the time when Hester stood in public shame on the scaffold, the priest sat up suddenly in his chair. An idea had come to him.
"There might be a moment's peace in it," he said to himself, and softly went down the stairs and out into the night.
He walked silently through the dark streets to the place of Hester Prynne's first hours of public shame the scaffold. The priest went up the steps to the platform.
It was midnight, and the town was asleep. Clouds covered the sky, and Mr Dimmesdale could stand there until morning without fear of discovery. Why, then, was he here? What had made him come? Guilt? Shame? He did not know but a feeling of great horror went through his whole body and he cried out a terrible scream, which echoed through the night, from one house to another and to the hills beyond the town.
‘It is done!’ whispered the priest, covering his face with his hands. "The whole town will wake up and find me here.
But the people of the town did not wake up, or if they did, they imagined the cry was something which came from their dreams. When he heard no sounds of feet hurrying towards him, the young priest uncovered his eyes and looked around. At a window in Governor Bellingham's house, which was not far away, he saw the Governor himself, in his white nightshirt, with a light in his hand.