The Ministers Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Mr. Hooper continued to act as always, greeting the children and saluting his neighbors. But, he was met with bewildered looks as the crowd avoided him. As he turned, a sad smile crept from underneath his veil. For the rest of his life, Hooper was conscious of the fear his veil instilled in the townspeople. It hurt him when children ran from him, and when rumors surfaced of a terrible crime he was hiding. He as “irreproachable in outward act, yet shrouded in dismal suspicious; kind and loving, though unloved and dimly feared; a man apart from men, shunned in their health and joy, but ever summon to their aid in mortal anguish.”