Reverend Hooper enters church with a mysterious black veil over his face, causing quite a stir among his parishioners. He delivers a sermon on secret sin and the things people hide in their hearts, "even forgetting the Omniscient can detect them." After the meeting, the congregation discusses the minister's veil, trying to interpret its meaning. The Reverend presents a funeral sermon and a wedding while wearing the veil, much to the dismay and disconcernment of the bride.
The entire town speaks of little else the next day. No one dare ask the minister to remove the veil or explain its presence except for his fiancee. He claims it is a sign of his sorrows and refuses to remove it. That was the last attempt to remove the veil. The veil causes children to flee and others to peep behind gravestones to get a look at his face. He becomes a highly respected minister in New England, notwithstanding the black barrier.
The Reverend Clark tries to persuade Hooper, on his death bed, to remove the veil. His reply: "Why do you tremble at me alone? Tremble also at each other! Have men avoided me, and women shown no pity, and children screamed and fled, only for my black veil? What, but the mystery which it obscurely typifies, has made this piece of crape so awful? When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best beloved; when man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived, and die! I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!"
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