him good. He strove to go deep into his patient's bosom, delving among
his principles, and prying into his recollections.

After a time, at a hint from old Roger Chillingworth, the friends of Mr.
Dimmesdale effected an arrangement by which the two men were lodged in
the same house; so that every ebb and flow of the minister's life-tide
might pass under the watchful eye of his anxious physician.

Old Roger Chillingworth, throughout life, had been calm in temperament,
of kindly affections, and ever in the world a pure and upright man. He
had begun an investigation, as he imagined, with the severe integrity of
a judge, desirous only of truth. But, as he proceeded, a terrible
fascination seized the old man within its grip, and never set him free
again until he had done all its bidding. He now dug into the poor
clergyman's heart, like a miner searching for gold. "This man," the
physician would say to himself at times, "pure as they deem him, hath
inherited a strong animal nature from his father or his mother. Let us
dig a little farther in the direction of this vein."

Henceforth Roger Chillingworth became not a spectator only, but a chief
actor in the poor minister's inner world. And Mr. Dimmesdale grew to
look with unaccountable horror and hatred at the old physician.

And still the minister's fame and reputation for holiness increased,
even while he was tortured by bodily disease and the black trouble of
his soul.

More than once Mr. Dimmesdale had gone into the pulpit, with a purpose
never to come down until he should have spoken the truth of his life.
And ever he put a cheat upon himself by confessing in general terms his