

The gossips also believe that Pearl is alive, married, and having kids, because they see Hester embroidering a baby garment.For the rest of her life, somebody sends Hester rich gifts, tokens, and ornaments-so someone's obviously looking after her.As she goes in, she turns around long enough to display the scarlet letter on the bodice of her dress.Hester Prynne's story becomes legend… until, one day, years later, a tall woman in a gray robe comes to the abandoned cottage where Hester and Pearl had lived.(Click the summary infographic to download.) It also means that Hester and Pearl can finally get out of town, which they do: one day, they just disappear from their cottage.This makes Pearl the richest heiress in the New World, which is awesome.He dies a year later and leaves all his property, in both England and in the U.S., to Pearl. After Dimmesdale's death, Roger Chillingworth has no reason to live.You know, like the fact that you wear the same socks two days in a row or never throw out leftovers?.Anyway, the narrator tells us all that we should be honest, rather than hiding our worst traits and sins from the world.That's, um, a lot of planning for a dying man.These people think that Dimmesdale chose to die in the arms of a fallen woman to demonstrate that we're all sinners in the eyes of God.And then there are the eternal optimists, who claimed they didn't see anything at all and that there's no way Dimmesdale could have been Pearl's father.And then some suggest that it appeared due to the "ever active tooth of remorse" (24.1).

Others think that Roger Chillingworth made it appear. Some think he minister etched the letter himself as a form of penance.

Some people say they saw a scarlet letter, similar to the one worn by Hester Prynne, engraved in Dimmesdale's flesh.Of course, no one can agree on what actually happened at the scaffold.
