The winter had been tolerable, as well as one could expect from a New England winter. It was cold daily with grey cloudy skies and shortened daylight. Food was scarcer, and people turned to foods they preserved in the fall, including dried and salted meats, pickled vegetables, and fruits turned into jams. It was a less prosperous season, its bleakness inevitable for months. It was as dreary as Hester expected.

The roaring fireplace in Dimmesdale's study unburdened their times together. She feared the colder months, and they were as unpleasant as the previous year as far as temperature. She had hated her husband for sending her to a cold wasteland, but she had made it through before, and now she felt guilt for feeling such anger towards someone now likely dead. He was not a bad man, as she remembered him. He just wasn't someone she could love.

She arrived at the minister’s house one Friday morning and hung her cloak, and removed her thick hat, her scarf, and her gloves that she needed even for the short walk from her residence to his. Dimmesdale was looking out the window to the graveyard when she arrived.

“Indeed, as thy warned, this season is bleak,” Dimmesdale said. “It is harder than I thought to keep the church warm enough for the parishioners. I cannot let them be miserable just to hear me speak of God. I must rise much earlier to tend to the fire; I cannot ask my followers to be miserable for thine ears to be enriched by mine words.”

“We manage,” Hester said. “Some warm bricks and carry in metal boxes to place at their feet during service. For the true faith is worth the cold, and that is why I make extra clothes. New members know not what they are in for, and they are grateful for the woollen clothes I craft to keep them warm inside the church.”

“Bless thee,” he said. “I can hardly bear this weather. Honestly, tis nothing like England at all.”

“God doesn't give us more than we can bear,” she said. “It will be over soon enough, then spring again.”

“Tis true. It will pass. Let me speak to thee on my sermon if thou art ready,” he said.

“I am indeed.”

She thought by now he must have been comfortable speaking in the church, which was his original concern when he proposed reviewing his sermons. He didn't need her for that anymore. If anything, it was harder for her to leave her home and travel just to sit with him. She didn't want to point that out, as there was something she longed for all week to see him, and that was worth the sacrifice.

“Today, I will discuss with you: Salvation,” said he. “All flesh is corrupt. All men by nature need salvation from wickedness. We are by nature children of wrath and enemies of God, but those who are gotten by Christ are thereby reconciled into eternal salvation.”

Hester did not speak it, but she disagreed. She did not think people were born bad and needed to be taught to be good. She thought children were pure and as adults were sometimes corrupted, but she felt her own nature was good and her own nature had only come to be once she could exist as a single person. She had not known herself outside first her father's then her husband's shadow. She felt goodness in her heart once she started to listen to it.

He continued his oration.

When he was done, she spoke. “Verily good. Thy passion and knowledge is inspiring to all the church,” she said. She wondered if at her salvation, if she would see her husband again, and she filled with dread at the thought. “Dost thou think we have a choice who we meet when we first enter Heaven, or does God decide for us?”

Dimmesdale brought his hand to his chin. “God is wrathful, and God is merciful as well. It is vain to hope we have a choice in the matter. He will think on our souls then decide who we deserve an everlasting and pure reunion. Perhaps if we were truly repentant, He will consider our wishes.”

Hester put down her needle. “Hast thou thought more on the question I asked upon our last meeting?”

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“Which question?”

“As I was a married woman, there were some duties I would do with my husband, and now I cannot help but miss that despite being a widow now,” she said.

“Thou art not a widow,” he said. “Thy husband may live.”

“He may,” she acquiesced. “I feel like a widow in my heart. I am waiting for confirmation of the state I know I am in. What if he is never found, like all the ship’s passengers? Should I never be permitted to remarry and love if I cannot be sure?”

“I have read upon the subject to thy question, and I do not think wives enjoy coupling the way husbands do, so I am thus perplexed on how to answer,” he said slowly and without making eye contact. He turned away.

She touched his arm. “That is not so. God would not make a union for one to love and other hate,” she said. “A marriage is blessed by God to beget children, and it would not befit that goal if both in a happy union did not enjoy each other and love each other both in their necessary actions.”

“Give me a moment.” He paced to the window and opened it slightly with his face in the path of the cold breeze. “Oh! Look at the snow!”

Hester ran to the window. The snow covered the landscape and was still falling. She could hardly see anything of the graveyard. There was hardly more to see than right outside the window, just grey and whiteness as if a sheet was hanging across the land.

“I must go!” Hester threw on her winter garments and flung open the door. She saw at least a foot had accumulated during her visit to the parish, maybe more.

“Mistress Prynne, please! It is not safe!” Dimmesdale pushed the door shut. “It still is coming down heavily. You must wait until at least it stops.”

“It may not stop until night!” she cried. “There is no moon tonight. I should not be able to see and the snow will be two feet deep by then.”

“Then thee will stay here until morning,” the minister declared. “You cannot freeze to death and die in a snowbank trying to fight thy way home. Thee will stay hither until it is safe to travel.”

“Stay?” she repeated.

“Aye.” He looked to the interior of the room. “Thee will take my bed, and I will take a blanket and sleep on the floor.”

“I could not take thy bed,” Hester insisted. “I could make it home if I leave now.”

“If thee did not make it, I could never forgive myself,” Dimmesdale said. “So I must insist. It is not much, but thee will remain safe. It is no trouble to sleep on the floor a night so a guest can be in comfort. Christ would give what he had to those in need.”

Hester blushed. “I thank ye, good reverend.”

Hester made supper to which they ate mostly in silence. She regretted her question earlier, and she had not thought if it would make him uncomfortable enough to not address. She wished in part to flee instead of sitting in discomfort at the implication of her previous marital activities and vex him with the notion a woman would long to participate in those activities.

After they ate, the reverend lit more candles as the sun was entirely gone. “Could I read to you from Essays in Divinity? I had planned to read from it and think on it after you had departed. I can read to myself if thy prefer,” he said.

“If thy wish, I shall listen,” she said. She smoothed out her dress as he read from his book. His eyes remained steadfastly on the page, his brows drawn together as he thought on each word.

Her mind started to wander, and when he finished his passage, she asked, “Reverend, can salvation be a person?”

“Salvation is the deliverance from sin and consequences. It cannot be a person,” he said.

“If a person were to save someone in such a way, could that be as similar to salvation as could happen on Earth?” she asked. “Could two people seek salvation in love? Hast thou ever been in love?”

“I have not. Rather, I am unsure.” He closed his book and looked down at his hands. “I love my congregation, that is true. And -”

“And?”

He looked at her. His hand moved towards her and then pulled back to himself. “Does it still snow?”

Hester looked out the window. “Aye.”

“Let me read more to thee. The evening is young, and we will be together until morning light, so let us use this time to think of God's guidance and His commandments.”

She noted that he evaded her question, but she knew the answer she longed to hear from him.