The ACT...Part 3

The play went on, our lines surging and drifting in some invisible tide; the emotion was rampant, and enveloped us both. I could no longer see or hear the class; I was alone with Dimmesdale, in the quiet woods, the sunlight glimmering through the trees; I was trying to heal this weak, despondent man; I was trying to show him that I loved him after all these years; and I desperately needed his strength as he did mine.

“....Dost thou not see what I would say?” I breathed. I was so close to weeping; my heart was breaking! It was against my will to unhand this information which had so wrongfully been kept from him. “That old man! – the physician, Roger Chillingworth! -- he was my husband!”
Dimmesdale sunk to his knees with a cry. “I might have known it. I did know it! Was not the secret told me in the natural recoil of my heart, at the first sight of him, and as often as I have seen him since? Why did I not understand? O Hester Prynne, thou little, little knowest all the horror of this thing!” I feared that tears would streak down his face at any moment; I watched him carefully, feeling the sharp pangs of the need to comfort him. “And the shame! – the indelicacy! -- the horrible ugliness of this exposure of a sick and guilty heart to the very eye that would gloat over it! Woman, thou art accountable for this! I cannot forgive thee!”

The last note was so bitter, I was again afraid that I would weep myself. I fell to my knees beside him, laying a firm hand at his back, fighting against the urge to fully embrace him and cry into his shoulder “Thou shalt forgive me! Let God punish! Thou shalt forgive!” Please, please! I implored silently. Arthur, you must – for the sake of our love!
He took a rattling breath, and I leaned into him. “I - I do forgive you, Hester,” he began. “May God forgive us both! We are not the worst sinners in the world. There is one worse than even the polluted priest. That old man's revenge has been blacker than my sin. He has violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart. Thou and I, Hester, never did so!”
A warm smile came to my lips. “Never, never!” I said softly, sweetly, letting my hand trickle down his arm. “What we did had a consecration of its own. We felt it so. We said so to each other. Hast thou forgotten it?”
“No; I have not forgotten,” he said, looking deep into my eyes, my soul, and then smiling a little too.

Emily broke in, and we froze, the tender love between us. “...The forest was obscure around them, and creaked with a blast that was passing through it. The boughs were tossing heavily above their heads; while one solemn old tree groaned dolefully to another, as if telling the sad story of the pair that sat beneath, or constrained to forebode evil to come.”
“Hester, here is a new horror!” Dimmesdale cried, starting forward. “Roger Chillingworth knows your purpose to reveal his true character. How am I to live longer, breathing the same air with this deadly enemy? Think for me, Hester! Thou art strong!” He clasped my hand, and startled, I nearly drew away; instead, I battled myself and let Hester speak.
“Thou must dwell no longer with this man - Thy heart must be nolonger under his evil eye!” I gave his fingers a slight squeeze, and he released me.

We were so close; every touch brought a new spark; every quavering voice shrouded us farther from the reality, and deeper into the woods, the quiet, solemn woods, our voices entwined.