第65章

"Is it you, then, that has changed him and made him so unnatural?"Catherine cried."Is it you that have worked on him and taken him from me? He doesn't belong to you, and I don't see how you have anything to do with what is between us! Is it you that have made this plot, and told him to leave me? How could you be so wicked, so cruel? What have I ever done to you? Why can't you leave me alone? I was afraid you would spoil everything; for you do spoil everything you touch! Iwas afraid of you all the time we were abroad; I had no rest when Ithought that you were always talking to him." Catherine went on with growing vehemence, pouring out, in her bitterness and in the clairvoyance of her passion (which suddenly, jumping all processes, made her judge her aunt finally and without appeal), the uneasiness which had lain for so many months upon her heart.

Mrs.Penniman was scared and bewildered; she saw no prospect of introducing her little account of the purity of Morris's motives."You are a most ungrateful girl!" she cried."Do you scold me for talking with him? I'm sure we never talked of anything but you!""Yes; and that was the way you worried him; you made him tired of my very name! I wish you had never spoken of me to him; I never asked your help!""I am sure if it hadn't been for me he would never have come to the house, and you would never have known that he thought of you,"Mrs.Penniman rejoined, with a good deal of justice.

"I wish he never had come to the house, and that I never had known it! That's better than this," said poor Catherine.

"You are a very ungrateful girl," Aunt Lavinia repeated.

Catherine's outbreak of anger and the sense of wrong gave her, while they lasted, the satisfaction that comes from all assertion of force; they hurried her along, and there is always a sort of pleasure in cleaving the air.But at bottom she hated to be violent, and she was conscious of no aptitude for organized resentment.She calmed herself with a great effort, but with great rapidity, and walked about the room a few moments, trying to say to herself that her aunt had meant everything for the best.She did not succeed in saying it with much conviction, but after a little she was able to speak quietly enough.

"I am not ungrateful, but I am very unhappy.It's hard to be grateful for that," she said."Will you please tell me where he is?""I haven't the least idea; I am not in secret correspondence with him!" And Mrs.Penniman wished, indeed, that she were, so that she might let him know how Catherine abused her, after all she had done.

"Was it a plan of his, then, to break off-?" By this time Catherine had become completely quiet.

Mrs.Penniman began again to have a glimpse of her chance for explaining."He shrunk- he shrunk," she said."He lacked courage, but it was the courage to injure you! He couldn't bear to bring down on you your father's curse."Catherine listened to this with her eyes fixed upon her aunt, and continued to gaze at her for some time afterward."Did he tell you to say that?""He told me to say many things- all so delicate, so discriminating; and he told me to tell you he hoped you wouldn't despise him.""I don't," said Catherine; and then she added, "And will he stay away forever?""Oh, forever is a long time.Your father, perhaps, won't live forever.""Perhaps not."

"I am sure you appreciate- you understand- even though your heart bleeds," said Mrs.Penniman."You doubtless think him too scrupulous.So do I, but I respect his scruples.What he asks of you is that you should do the same."Catherine was still gazing at her aunt, but she spoke at last as if she had not heard or not understood her."It has been a regular plan, then.He has broken it off deliberately; he has given me up.""For the present, dear Catherine; he has put it off, only.""He has left me alone," Catherine went on.

"Haven't you me?" asked Mrs.Penniman, with some solemnity.

Catherine shook her head slowly."I don't believe it!" and she left the room.