g to the door.

He swerved aside, and attempted to pass.

'You must not go!' she exclaimed, energetically.

'I must and shall!' he replied in a subdued voice.

'No,' she persisted, grasping the handle; 'not yet, Edgar Linton: sit
down; you shall not leave me in that temper. I should be miserable all
night, and I won't be miserable for you!'

'Can I stay after you have struck me?' asked Linton.

Catherine was mute.

'You've made me afraid and ashamed of you,' he continued; 'I'll not come
here again!'

Her eyes began to glisten and her lids to twinkle.

'And you told a deliberate untruth!' he said.

'I didn't!' she cried, recovering her speech; 'I did nothing
deliberately. Well, go, if you please--get away! And now I'll cry--I'll
cry myself sick!'

She dropped down on her knees by a chair, and set to weeping in serious
earnest. Edgar persevered in his resolution as far as the court; there
he lingered. I resolved to encourage him.

'Miss is dreadfully wayward, sir,' I called out. 'As bad as any marred
child: you'd better be riding home, or else she will be sick, only to
grieve us.'

The soft thing looked askance through the window: he possessed the power
to depart as much as a cat possesses the power to leave a mouse half
killed, or a bird half eaten. Ah, I thought, there will be no saving
him: he's doomed, and flies to his fate! And so it was: he turned
abruptly, hastened into the house again, shut the door behind him; and
when I went in a while after to inform them that Earnshaw had come home
rabid drunk, ready to pull the whole place about our ears (his ordinary
frame of mind in that condition), I saw the quarrel had merely effected a
closer intimacy--had broken the outworks of youthful timidity, and
enabled them to forsake the disguise of friendship, and confess
themselves lovers.

Intelligence of Mr. Hindley's arrival drove Linton speedily to his horse,
and Catherine to her chamber. I went to hide little Hareton, and to take
the shot out of the master's fowling-piece, which he was fond of playing
with in his insane excitement, to the hazard of the lives of any who
provoked, or even attracted his notice too much; and I had hit upon the
plan of removing it, that he might do less mischief if he did go the
length of firing the gun.

CHAPTER IX

He entered, vociferating oaths dreadful to hear; and caught me in the act
of stowing his son sway in the kitchen cupboard. Hareton was impres