She then reminisces about her life when she was an active wife to Chillingworth, realizing that these memories were among “her ugliest remembrances.” She wonders how she ever agreed to marry the man, thinking it was her crime “most to be repented of.” She also thinks it was even

Hester looks for Pearl. While Hester and the doctor had been conversing, Pearl had been amusing herself down of the beach, making boats from birch, melting a jellyfish in the sun, etc… When Pearl saw a flock of seagulls, she took her apron filled with rocks and flung the rocks at the birds. She soon gave up because it “grieved her to have done harm” to something that was as wild as she.

Hester begins to wonder about Pearl, how precocious yet perceptive the child is. She then questions that if Pearl is so, she can probably confide in Pearl, who can then console Hester’s pain. As Hester wonders this, Pearl persists in asking about the meaning of the letter and about the minister’s chest-clutching. Hester realizes the child is too young to know the meaning of the letter and thinks, “If this be the price of the child’s sympathy, I cannot pay it!”

Sure enough, when she came to Hester�

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