CHAPTER 31

- Ellen's story ended with the last chapter. Now you are back
in the present, with Lockwood, who visits Wuthering
Heights once more to say he's leaving, and to take another
look at the lovely young widow. He has expressed an
interest in her before, at the end of Chapter 14 ("...let me
beware of the fascination that lurks in Catherine
Heathcliff's brilliant eyes"), and at the beginning of Chapter
25, when Ellen suggested that he marry Cathy. Nothing
comes of this, however, and he dismisses her now with
great arrogance. "Living among clowns and
misanthropists," he had reasoned, "she probably can't
appreciate a better class of people, when she meets them."
But it is true that Cathy is as unpleasant as she was the first
time they met. Lockwood now defends Hareton, playing
the role of peacemaker instead of lover. But the question
has been raised: Is it possible that Cathy will consider
remarrying. In your one glimpse of Heathcliff you see the
first crack in his plan of revenge. "It will be odd, if I thwart
myself!" he says.

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