Why is it harder to leave prison at the end of her sentence?

Hester finds it harder to leave prison after her sentence because the public isn't watching her and jeering at her. Earlier in the novel, when she left prison with a crowd watching, she was forced to act haughty and unaffected and "convert the scene into a kind of lurid triumph", but without that presence she wasn't able to conjure as much strength and felt the full burden of the future ahead of her.