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.