noon
`` Then , and there , before the judgment-seat , thy mother , and thou , and I must stand together . But the daylight of this world shall not see our meeting ! '' Pearl laughed again . -LSB- Illustration : `` They stood in the noon of that strange splendor '' -RSB- But , before Mr. Dimmesdale had done speaking , a light gleamed far and wide over all the muffled sky . It was doubtless caused by one of those meteors , which the night-watcher may so often observe burning out to waste , in the vacant regions of the atmosphere . So powerful was its radiance , that it thoroughly illuminated the dense medium of cloud betwixt the sky and earth . The great vault brightened , like the dome of an immense lamp .