"I do not understand you."
"It is impossible you should perform the duties of the station you are about to occupy, and continue to do as you are doing now. The attempt wuld be absurd."
"I have not tried it yet."
"But I know what your duties will be, and I assure you, my dear Hester, you will find the thing cannot be done."
"You set me thinking of more things than I can manage all at once," she replied in a troubled way. "I must think."
"The more you think, the better satisfied you will be of what I say. All I want of you is to think; for I am certain if you do, your good sense will convince you I am right."
He paused a moment. Hester did not speak. He resumed:
"Just think," he said, "what it would be to have you coming home to go out again straight from one of these kennels of the small-pox! The idea is horrible! Wherever you were suspected of being present, the house would be shunned like the gates of death."
"In such circumstances I should not go out."
"The suspicion of it would be enough. And in your absence, as certainly as in your presence, though not so fatally, you would be neglecting your duty to society."