Hereafter she is only my sister in name: not because I disown her, but because she has disowned me
As he spoke he took the servant to the door, and then repeated his demand to know her reasons for such an assertion.
“Why, I met on the road a lad that fetches milk here,” she stammered, “and he asked whether we werent in trouble at the Grange. Then says he, ‘Theres somebody gone after em, I guess? I stared. He saw I knew nought about it, and he told how a gentleman and lady had stopped to have a horses shoe fastened at a blacksmiths shop, two miles out of Gimmerton, not very long after midnight! and how the blacksmiths lass had got up to spy who they were: she knew them both directly. And she noticed the man-Heathcliff it was, she felt certain: nobdy could mistake him, besides-put a sovereign in her fathers hand for payment. The lady had a cloak about her face; but having desired a sup of water, while she drank it fell back, and she saw her very plain. Heathcliff held both bridles as they rode on, and they set their faces from the village, and went as fast as the rough roads would let them. The lass said nothing to her father, but she told it all over Gimmerton this morning.”
I ran and peeped, for forms sake, into Isabellas room; confirming, when I returned, the servants statement. Mr. Linton had resumed his seat by the bed; on my re-entrance, he raised his eyes, read the meaning of my blank aspect, and dropped them without giving an order, or uttering a word.
“She went of her own accord,” answered the master; “she had a right to go if she pleased. Trouble me no more about her. ”
And that was all he said on the subject: he did not make a single inquiry further, or mention her in any way, except directing me to send what property she had in the house to her fresh home, wherever it was, when I knew it.
CHAPTER XIII
For two months the fugitives remained absent; in those two months, Mrs. Linton encountered and conquered the worst shock of what was denominated a brain fever. No mother could have nursed an only child more devotedly than Edgar tended her. Day and night he was watching, and patiently enduring all the annoyances that irritable nerves and a shaken reason could inflict; and, though Kenneth remarked that what he saved from the grave would only recompense his care by forming the source of constant future anxiety-in fact, that his health he said and strength were being sacrificed to preserve a mere ruin of humanity-he knew no limits in gratitude and joy when Catherines life was declared out of danger; and hour after hour he would sit beside her, tracing the gradual return to bodily health, and flattering his too sanguine hopes with the illusion that her mind would settle back to its right balance also, and she would soon be entirely her former self.
The first time she left her chamber was at the commencement of the following March. Mr. Linton had put on her pillow, in the morning, a handful of golden crocuses; her eye, long stranger to any gleam of pleasure, caught them in waking, and shone delighted as she gathered them eagerly together.
“These are the earliest flowers at the Heights,” she exclaimed. “They remind me of soft thaw winds, and warm sunshine, and nearly melted snow. Edgar, is there not a south wind, and is not the snow almost gone?”
