Governor Bellingham wants to take Pearl, who is now three years old, from Hester because he believes Hester's status as a fallen woman may endanger Pearl's soul after death as well as her well-being on earth. The governor questions Hester, asking her if it would not be better if Pearl were raised apart from her, put in more somber clothes, and brought up with discipline in a religious household? As the governor puts it:

Were it not, thinkest thou, for thy little one’s temporal and eternal welfare, that she be taken out of thy charge, and clad soberly, and disciplined strictly, and instructed in the truths of Heaven and earth?

Governor Bellingham then proceeds to ask:

What canst thou do for the child, in this kind?

Hester responds that she can teach Pearl the wisdom she has learned from her shame.

When Pearl refuses to answer the question of where she came from properly, saying she was plucked off a rosebush rather than that she was made by God, the governor is outraged and says it is clear she should be taken from her mother.

Dimmesdale, however, at Hester's request, makes a passionate appeal that the child be left with Hester, which convinces the governor to allow them to stay together for now.