A lime-burner named Bartram and his son hear a disturbing roar of laughter echo through the twilight in the hills.

The sin of an intellect that triumphed over the sense of brotherhood with man and reverence for God, and sacrificed everything to its own mighty claims!

In the course of his interactions with them, Brand is disturbed by their coarse behavior and begins to doubt whether he really found the unpardonable sin.

Brand remembers that the research, "wasted, absorbed, and perhaps annihilated her soul, in the process," and so he is again convinced that he found the "unpardonable sin".

Bartram and his son, after a night of fitful sleep and dreams full of maniacal laughter, awake to find the landscape populated by heavenly atmospheric phenomena.

His experiences here, especially a walk he took at midnight where he saw a burning lime kiln, inspired this story, originally titled "The Unpardonable Sin".

[3] Hawthorne had planned a lengthy tale about Brand's life and his travels in search of the "Unpardonable Sin" but published only this, most of which would have formed the climactic chapter.