There is one… that old man… (that) has violated in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart” (161). Dimmesdale even supports this claim by saying, “We are not, Hester, the worst sinners in the world. After this, we can see that for a minute, Hester does not agree with how the Puritans view her “sinful actions.” Though she does not say that what she did was free of sin, she does believe that God may forgive them. However, she convinces herself that this route “would have been infinitely preferable to the alternative which she had taken upon herself to choose” (160). Chillingworth attempted to persuade Hester that telling Dimmesdale their secret would ruin his career and even cause his death.
Next, she wrestles with the idea that Chillingworth imposed into her mind. As a result, Hester tells Dimmesdale her big secret and he freaks out about it. She at first “hesitated to speak,” but then later “conquered her fears, and spoke” (159). First, Hester has an internal conflict with whether or not she should tell Dimmesdale that Chillingworth is her husband. There are a few conflicts that occur in this chapter that all basically revolve around the fact that Hester’s husband is Chillingworth. In chapter 17 “The Pastor and his Parishioner” Hester and Dimmesdale are able to escape the “poison” of Chillingworth within the security and isolation of the forest, far away from the puritan colony and the man who is “infecting all the air about him”. Hester is concerned for Dimmesdale’s health and mental condition, she can see that he is deteriorating due to the constant exposure to the “cruel purpose” of Roger Chillingworth, and feels as though he should be aware that the cause of his agony is connected to her. This knowledge is the primary motivation for Hester to confess that this cruel and evil man is in fact her husband, and it is for this reason that he strives to torture Dimmesdale for the sin that he has committed. Hester is aware of the terrible anguish that Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is enduring as a result of living with Chillingworth, a man who wants him to suffer and deteriorate in both spirit and body. "She doubted not, that the continual presence of Roger Chillingworth, - the secret poison of his malignity, infecting all the air about him, - and his authorized interference, as a physician, with the minister’s physical and spiritual infirmities, - that these bad opportunities had been turned to a cruel purpose."
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