The Heart

Then Catherine Cavendish, awakening such bewilderment and dismay in

me as I had never felt, looked at her sister, and said in a voice

which I can hear yet: "Have thy way then, sister; but 'tis over thy

own sister's heart."

"What mean you?" Mary asked breathlessly.

"I love him!" said Catherine.

I felt the hot blood mount to my head, and I knew what shame was. I

turned to retreat. I knew not what to do, but Mary's voice stopped

me. It rang out clear and pitiless, with that pitilessness of a

great love.

"And what is that to me, Catherine?" she cried out. "Sure it is but

to thy shame if thou hast loved unsought and confessed unasked. And

if I had ten thousand sisters, and they all in love with him, as

well they might be, for there is no one like him in the whole world,

over all their hearts would I go, rather than he should miss me for

but a second, if he loved me. Think you that aught like that can

make a difference? Think you that one heart can outweigh two, and

the misery of one be of any account before that of three?"

Then suddenly she looked sharply at her sister and cried out

angrily: "Catherine Cavendish, I know what this means. 'Tis but another

device to part us. You love him not. You have hated him from the

first. You have hated him, and he is no more guilty than you be.

'Tis but a trick to turn me from him. Fie, think you that will avail?

Think you that a sister's heart counts with a maid before her

lover's? Little you know of love and lovers to think that."

Then to my great astonishment, since I had never seen such weakness

in her before, Catherine flung up her hands before her face and

burst into such a storm of wild weeping as never was, and fled into

the house, and Mary and I stood alone together, but only for a

second, for Mary, also casting a glance at me, then about her at the

utter loneliness and silence of the world, fled in her turn. Then I

went to my room, but not to sleep nor to think altogether of love,

for my Lord Culpeper was to sail that day, and the next night was

appointed for the beginning of the plant cutting.