onths, we have been very near; and I have been
in sad pain, and danger, and misery, Cary."

"I could not come."

"Couldn't you? But the rectory and Briarmains are very near--not two
miles apart."

There was pain and there was pleasure in the girl's face as she listened
to these implied reproaches. It was sweet, it was bitter to defend
herself.

"When I say I could not come, I mean I could not see you; for I came
with mamma the very day we heard what had happened. Mr. MacTurk then
told us it was impossible to admit any stranger."

"But afterwards--every fine afternoon these many weeks past I have
waited and listened. Something here, Cary"--laying his hand on his
breast--"told me it was impossible but that you should think of me. Not
that I merit thought; but we are old acquaintance--we are cousins."

"I came again, Robert; mamma and I came again."

"Did you? Come, that is worth hearing. Since you came again, we will sit
down and talk about it."

They sat down. Caroline drew her chair up to his. The air was now dark
with snow; an Iceland blast was driving it wildly. This pair neither
heard the long "wuthering" rush, nor saw the white burden it drifted.
Each seemed conscious but of one thing--the presence of the other.

"So mamma and you came again?"

"And Mrs. Yorke did treat us strangely. We asked to see you. 'No,' said
she, 'not in my house. I am at present responsible for his life; it
shall not be forfeited for half an hour's idle gossip.' But I must not
tell you all she said; it was very disagreeable. However, we came yet
again--mamma, Miss Keeldar, and I. This time we thought we should
conquer, as we were three against one, and Shirley was on our side. But
Mrs. Yorke opened such a battery."

Moore smiled. "What did she say?"

"Things that astonished us. Shirley laughed at last; I cried; mamma was
seriously annoyed. We were all three driven from the field. Since that
time I have only walked once a day past the house, just for the
satisfaction of looking up at your window, which I could distinguish by
the drawn curtains. I really dared not come in."

"I _have_ wished for you, Caroline."

"I did not know that; I never dreamt one instant that you thought of me.
If I had but most distantly imagined such a possibility----"

"Mrs. Yorke would still have beaten you."

"She would not. Stratagem should have been tried, if persuasion failed.
I would have come to the kitchen door; the servants should have let