Two examples of this connection in The Crucible are John Proctor and, to a lesser extent, Reverend Hale. Before the play begins, John has had an affair with his servant, Abigail. Because of the high standards he held himself to, knowing that he had not been faithful to his wife left him plagued by constant guilt and led him "...to view himself as some sort of fraud » (Miller 79). To make matters worse, his wife, Elizabeth, found out about the affair. In a perfect example of how a guilty conscience can affect a person's thoughts, Elizabeth's knowledge of John's infidelity led John to do everything he could to please her over the months following. Unfortunately, her guilty conscience was not assuaged and was the ultimate cause of her decision at the end of the play not to “confess” to being a witch (Miller 260-261). As for Reverend Hale, he was the instigator of the witch trials at the beginning of the play. However, as events progressed, he began to believe the victims and realized that they were not actually witches. Feeling guilty that innocent citizens were hanged, he returned to Salem even after the trials had eluded him to try to convince the other accused to confess (Miller 241-242). Lying was strictly forbidden in his faith, so Hale would never have asked anyone to falsely confess if he hadn't felt an extreme sense of guilt during the entire series of