In Chapter XXIII of "The Scarlet Letter," the climax of the novel occurs as Dimmesdale, spent from his inspiring sermon, "with the foreboding look of untimely death upon him," rejects the proferred arm of the Reverend Mr. Wilson. Even though the minister is, at this moment,
on the very proudest eminence of superiority, to which the gifts of intellect, rich lore, prevailing eloquence, and a reputation of whitest sanctity, could exalt a clergy man in New England's earliest days, when the professional character was of itself as a lofty pedestal...
Dimmesdale walks over to Hester "with the scarlet letter still burning on her breast" and Pearl, who are standing by the scaffold; the minister stretches forth his arms:
It was a ghastly look with which he regarded them; but there was somehting at once tender and strangely triumphant in it. The child,...flew to him, and clasped her arms about his knees. Hester Prynne...likewise drew near, but paused before she reached him.
It is at this point that Roger Chillingworth intervenes with an "dark, disturbed, and evil" look. He
rose up out of some nether region,--to snatch back his victim from what he sought to do!
Then, the passage cited above in the question is spoken by Chillingworth, for he realizes that Dimmesdale will escape him on the only place that he can: the scaffold. (This is why the minister has the triumphant look upon his face.) Like Jesus, who rebukes Satan when he offers Jesus all below him as a kingdom, Dimmesdale rejects the old physician,
'Ha tempter! Methinks thou art too late!....With God's help, I shall escape thee now!'
Asking Hester to join him on the scaffold, he confesses his sin, tearing open his vestment to reveal triumphantly something on his chest. Then, he sinks upon the scaffold, and Chillingworth kneels beside him, exclaiming, "Thou hast escaped me!"
The third and final scaffold scene brings all the main characters together to the place of punishment and atonement where each character is revealed as what he or she is. Pearl becomes a real character, who kisses her father. Hester, returning to her original place of humiliation; Dimmesdale finally stands as her partner in adultery and confesses his hypocrisy. This truth does, indeed, set him free, for it frees him from the most evil of all, Chillingworth, whose sin is the blackest of all as he would violate "the sanctity of the human heart" by torturing Arthur Dimmesdale. Finally, all characters are "true." This is Hawthorne's exhortation in the conclusion of his narrative: "Be true! Be true!"
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