their feelings for one another or Dimmesdale's fatherhood, serious repercussions would be almost inevitable; they needed to meet in a place that would allow them to be open and honest with one another.

She plans on meeting Dimmesdale in the woods outside of town, where he will pass coming back from visiting another town. She does this because of the nature of the conversation she is going to have with him. Even though she knows no one in town would ever suspect the truth of their relationship (because of their reverence for Dimmesdale), Hester is fearful to discuss Chillingworth or their affair anywhere except under the canopy of the woods. This setting is significant to both theme development and symbolism. The darkness of the woods is representative of hidden truth. Also, independence and freedom are connected to nature throughout the novel, such as the rosebush growing on the prison wall and Pearl's playfulness in the field and by the brook.

Dimmesdale pleads publicly with Hester as she stands on the scaffold bearing the punishment for her adultery. He tells her she must name her lover so that he can share her shame and guilt, and does this so eloquently that hearts in the crowd "vibrate" from his words. He says her naming him will spare the adulterer the sin of being a hypocrite.

Nevertheless, Hester refuses to do so. She says, speaking to him, with no one else knowing that he is the father, that she will never betray her lover. She wants to bear the pain for both of them, stating:

And would that I might endure his agony as well as mine!

Dimmesdale wants Hester to be strong for him, because he is too weak to confess to what he has done. Hester, however, wants to protect him.

For all his words, Dimmesdale sounds relieved that Hester will not betray him saying:

Wondrous strength arid generosity of a woman’s heart! She will not speak!

We can perceive that Dimmesdale is torn between his desire to make a clean breast of it and a desire to maintain his good reputation.

This is also the moment when Hester clearly reveals her verdict on what she and Arthur have done:  "What we did had a consecration of its own."  The forest scene provides the only time in the novel where Arthur and Hester are able to speak openly with each other, where Hester reveals her real shame to Arthur (re:  Chillingworth), and where we plumb the depths of Arthur's love, visible in his ready willingness to forgive her.  I have always found this to be one of the saddes and most tender scenes in all literature.

Perhaps another reason for Hester's meeting and speaking to Dimmesdale is her desire to overcome the terrible aloneness she has felt as a result of their separation and her ignominy:  "The soul beheld its features in the mirror of the passing moment...They now felt themselves,at least, inhabitants of the same sphere.

In Chapter XVII, Dimmesdale and Hester are, at last, able to converse about "themes that were brooding deepest in their hearts."  Their sharing of thoughts and feelings gives some meaning to their lives.  Hester tells Dimmesdale that their love "had a consecration of its own." 

In the forest Dimmesdale can finally be true, as Hester has been in her revelation of Chillingworth.  When Hester casts off the scarlet letter and her cap, her hair gains a richness, her face beauty.  In their meeting Hester and Dimmesdale come back to life, a life that has passion and hope.

Hester plans to reveal the true identity of Chillingworth to Dimmesdale because she is concerned about what Chillingworth may be doing to him. She decides to look for Dimmesdale in the forest where he goes for walks. When she finds him, they are able to spend some time alone in the forest while Pearl plays at the edge of the brook. During this time, Hester removes the scarlet letter and the two plan to escape together on a ship scheduled to leave Boston for England.

Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter contains a tense episode in chapter 17, when Hester decides to meet Dimmesdale in the forest and reveals her relationship to Chillingworth. While the question does not say specifically what quotation you refer to, this is the chapter that offers their only intimate encounter in the novel and contains a few statements of note.

First is Hester's revelation, after which Dimmesdale at first claims he cannot forgive her and that he has suffered most from their predicament:

"Oh, Arthur!" cried she, "forgive me! In all things else, I have striven to be true! Truth was the one virtue which I might have held fast, and did hold fast, through all extremity; save when thy good—thy life—thy fame—were put in question! Then I consented to a deception. But a lie is never good, even though death threaten on the other side! Dost thou not see what I would say? That old man!—the physician!—he whom they call Roger Chillingworth!—he was my husband!"

Given the novel's—and Pearl's insistence on the importance of "being true" to oneself, Hester's insistence that she was guilty only of failing in this when she promised to conceal Chillingworth's identity.

The most shocking claim, however, seems to be her statement:

"What we did had a consecration of its own. We felt it so! We said so to each other. Hast thou forgotten it?"

Hawthorne's diction is so purposefully complex that the use of the word "consecration" seems shocking when speaking of adulterous sexuality. This claim takes the initial premise of the novel—that the two are tormented by their past sinful encounter—and transforms the act into something holy.

This same chapter also finds Hester offering Dimmesdale a path out of the misery the town holds for them both. Her strength allows him to imagine another way of being in the world that doesn't demand the sacrifices the Massachusetts Bay Colony expects. Hester's clarity of mind, compared to Dimmesdale's morose gloom, offers a redemptive and healthy alternative.