e would do; so, repeating my desire that she would remain
there, I was about to hurry home as fast as I could, when an approaching
sound arrested me. It was the trot of a horse; Cathy's dance stopped
also.

'Who is that?' I whispered.

'Ellen, I wish you could open the door,' whispered back my companion,
anxiously.

'Ho, Miss Linton!' cried a deep voice (the rider's), 'I'm glad to meet
you. Don't be in haste to enter, for I have an explanation to ask and
obtain.'

'I sha'n't speak to you, Mr. Heathcliff,' answered Catherine. 'Papa says
you are a wicked man, and you hate both him and me; and Ellen says the
same.'

'That is nothing to the purpose,' said Heathcliff. (He it was.) 'I
don't hate my son, I suppose; and it is concerning him that I demand your
attention. Yes; you have cause to blush. Two or three months since,
were you not in the habit of writing to Linton? making love in play, eh?
You deserved, both of you, flogging for that! You especially, the elder;
and less sensitive, as it turns out. I've got your letters, and if you
give me any pertness I'll send them to your father. I presume you grew
weary of the amusement and dropped it, didn't you? Well, you dropped
Linton with it into a Slough of Despond. He was in earnest: in love,
really. As true as I live, he's dying for you; breaking his heart at
your fickleness: not figuratively, but actually. Though Hareton has made
him a standing jest for six weeks, and I have used more serious measures,
and attempted to frighten him out of his idiotcy, he gets worse daily;
and he'll be under the sod before summer, unless you restore him!'

'How can you lie so glaringly to the poor child?' I called from the
inside. 'Pray ride on! How can you deliberately get up such paltry
falsehoods? Miss Cathy, I'll knock the lock off with a stone: you won't
believe that vile nonsense. You can feel in yourself it is impossible
that a person should die for love of a stranger.'

'I was not aware there were eavesdroppers,' muttered the detected
villain. 'Worthy Mrs. Dean, I like you, but I don't like your
double-dealing,' he added aloud. 'How could _you_ lie so glaringly as to
affirm I hated the "poor child"? and invent bugbear stories to terrify
her from my door-stones? Catherine Linton (the very name warms me), my
bonny lass, I shall be from home all this week; go and see if have not
spoken truth: do, there's a darling! Just imagine your father in my
place, and Lint