After three weeks, I was finally well enough to leave my room and move about the house. On my first evening downstairs, since my eyes were still weak, I asked Catherine to read to me in the library. She agreed, though rather reluctantly. After about an hour of steady reading, she began to grow restless, repeatedly asking if I was tired or if I should like to lie down.
When she realized I had no intention of moving, she tried a different tactic. She began to yawn and stretch, eventually complaining that she was exhausted. She sighed and checked her watch until eight o’clock, then hurried to her room, appearing completely worn out. On the third night, she claimed to have a headache and left me early. Suspicious of her odd behavior, I waited a while before going to her room to see if she needed anything. To my surprise, the room was empty, and the servants had not seen her.
I sat by the window in the dark, watching the moonlight on the thin layer of snow. Eventually, I spotted a figure moving near the park fence. It was one of the grooms leading Catherine’s pony, and there she was, walking beside it. She slipped into the house through a drawing-room window and glided silently up the stairs. When she entered her room, I suddenly stood up and revealed myself. She was petrified, standing frozen in surprise.
"Where have you been, Miss Catherine?" I demanded. "And why have you deceived me with these stories of being tired?"
She burst into tears and threw her arms around my neck, terrified that I would be angry. Once we sat down, she confessed everything. She had been visiting Wuthering Heights every single day of my illness. She had bribed Michael, the groom, with books from the library to prepare her pony in secret each evening.
"It wasn't always for my own pleasure," she explained. "Sometimes I was miserable there, though occasionally I was happy. I felt I had to keep my promise to Linton."
She described how, on her better visits, she and Linton would sit by the fire, laughing and planning for the summer. However, they once came close to a serious quarrel over their different ideas of a perfect day. Linton thought the ultimate happiness was to lie on a bank of heath on the moors, listening to the bees hum under a cloudless sky—an ecstasy of peace. Catherine, however, wanted to be rocking in a rustling tree with a wild wind blowing, surrounded by singing birds and shifting clouds—a world awake and wild with joy.
"I said his heaven would be only half alive," she told me, "and he said he wouldn't be able to breathe in mine."
She also recounted a more troubling encounter with Hareton Earnshaw. One evening, as she arrived, Hareton met her and proudly pointed to the inscription above the door. He had finally learned to read the name: "Hareton Earnshaw." Instead of praising his effort, Catherine laughed and called him a dunce because he could not yet read the numbers.
"Stop, Catherine!" I interrupted. "That was very poor behavior. Hareton is your cousin, too, and it was a noble ambition for him to try and learn. To mock his attempt was cruel. Had you been raised in his difficult circumstances, would you be any better?"
Catherine looked surprised but continued her story. When she entered the house that night, Hareton followed, his face red with suppressed rage. In a fit of passion, he seized Linton and physically threw him out of the room, shouting that he would not be locked out of his own parlor. The shock and violence of the encounter triggered a terrifying coughing fit in Linton. He fell to the floor, coughing up blood, while Joseph mocked them from the corner.
Catherine was sick with terror. When she finally managed to get Linton upstairs with Zillah’s help, Hareton tried to apologize, but she struck him with her whip and galloped home, nearly out of her senses. She stayed away for two days, but her concern for Linton eventually overcame her fear and anger. When she returned, she found Linton on a sofa, recovering but in a foul mood. He spent an hour refusing to speak to her, and when he finally did, he selfishly blamed her for the entire incident.
"I almost left him forever," she said. "But as I was going, he begged me to stay. He admitted that he is worthless and has a bad temper, but he said that my kindness made him love me more than he deserved. I felt he was speaking the truth, Ellen, and I had to forgive him."
Catherine looked at me pleadingly. "Now you know everything. If you tell Papa, you will make two people miserable. Please, let me keep going; it won't hurt anyone if it remains a secret."
"I will think it over," I replied.
However, I did not wait. I went straight to my master and related the entire story, though I omitted the details about Hareton. Mr. Linton was deeply distressed. The following morning, Catherine learned that her secret was out and that her visits were to end immediately. Despite her tears and pleas, her father was firm. He promised to write to Linton and invite him to the Grange, but he forbade Catherine from ever stepping foot in Wuthering Heights again. Had he known the true extent of his nephew’s selfish nature and failing health, he might not have offered even that small kindness.