Without further expostulation or delay, Hester Prynne drained the cup, and, at the motion of the man of skill, seated herself on the bed where the child was sleeping; while he drew the only chair which the room afforded, and took his own seat beside her. She could not but tremble at these preparations; for she felt that⁠—having now done all that humanity or principle, or, if so it were, a refined cruelty, impelled him to do, for the relief of physical suffering⁠—he was next to treat with her as the man whom she had most deeply and irreparably injured.