is done and she is punished for it. She is punished for the sin of sins,
the sundering of the body from the soul. All her life after she sees her
sin. She has taken her body, torn it apart and given it to Edgar Linton,
and Heathcliff has her soul.

"'You love Edgar Linton,' Nelly Dean says, 'and Edgar loves you ...
where is the obstacle?'

"_'Here!_ and _here_!' replied Catherine, striking one hand on her
forehead, and the other on her breast: 'in whichever place the soul
lives. In my soul and in my heart, I'm convinced I'm wrong.'... 'I've no
more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if
the wicked man in there hadn't brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn't
have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he
shall never know how I love him, and that, not because he's handsome,
Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are
made of, his and mine are the same.'"

Not only are they made of the same stuff, but Heathcliff _is_ her soul.

"'I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that
there is, or should be, an existence of yours beyond you. What were the
use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries
in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries ... my great thought in
living is himself.... Nelly! I _am_ Heathcliff! He's always, always in
my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am a pleasure to myself, but
as my own being.'"

That is her "secret".

Of course, there is Cathy's other secret--her dream, which passes for
Emily Bronte's "pretty piece of Paganism". But it is only one side of
Emily Bronte. And it is only one side of Catherine Earnshaw. When
Heathcliff turns from her for a moment in that last scene of passion,
she says: "'Oh, you see, Nelly, he would not relent a moment to keep me
out of the grave. _That_ is how I'm loved! Well, never mind. That is not
_my_ Heathcliff. I shall love mine yet; and take him with me: he's in my
soul. And,' she added musingly, 'the thing that irks me most is this
shattered prison, after all. I'm tired of being enclosed here. I'm
wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there: not
seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of
an aching heart; but really with it and in it. Nelly, you think you are
better and more fortunate than I; in full health and strength; you are
sorry for me--very soon that will be altered. I sh