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Summary
After three weeks, Nelly's health improves. When she is able to sit up she asks Cathy to read to her in the evening and she does it with barely disguised impatience. She behaves in the same way the next evening too and on the third evening she complains of a headache and goes to her bedroom.
Nelly goes to her room to enquire about her health, only to find Cathy missing. She waits by the window for her to return. On her return, Cathy at first lies about what she had been doing but finally confesses that she had been visiting Linton every evening at the Heights.
Cathy now takes up the narration describing her visits to the Heights. On one occasion Hareton meets her at the gate and proudly reads the name above the door but cannot manage to read the figures. So Catherine mocks him and calls him a dunce. In revenge, he chases her and Linton from the room. Linton's shrieks brings on a dreadful fit of coughing and blood gushes from his mouth.
Hareton tries to speak to her as she starts for home but she cuts him with her whip.
On her next visit, Linton is bad-tempered. But he admits to his faults saying that he is a worthless fellow, bad in temper and bad in spirit and that if she wants to leave him, she is free to say good-bye. This moves Catherine to tears and they part on friendly terms.
On hearing this entire account from Cathy, Nelly reports the manner to Edgar. Edgar forbids Cathy to visit Wuthering Heights again but promises to write and give Linton permission to call at the Grange.
Critical Analysis
Linton appears in a very unfavorable light in this chapter. He is temperamental, sickly, peevish and apt to complain about everyone and everything. Cathy's attraction for him seems inexplicable.
However, Linton recognizes his own deficiencies of character. The relationship of Cathy and Linton has none of the passionate intensity of their parents — Heathcliff and Catherine. Sentimental and wishy-washy, they quarrel frequently and make up by crying in each other's arms. This is a total contrast to Heathcliff and Catherine who had always mocked Edgar and Isabella whenever they cried as children.
There is again a shift in the narrative stance. Here the reader views the events from Catherine's point of view. Despite her partiality to Linton, Linton appears selfish and weak, while Hareton though as yet, unrefined and boorish, shows some positive signs of grace.