Agnes discreetly made no reply, and Rose was left alone. She sat
dreaming a few minutes, the corners of the red mouth drooping.
Then she sprang up with a long sigh. 'A little life!' she said
half-aloud, 'A little _wickedness!_' and she shook her curly head
defiantly.

A few minutes later, in the little drawing-room on the other side
of the hall, Catherine and Rose stood together by the open window.
For the first time in a lingering spring, the air was soft and
balmy; a tender grayness lay over the valley; it was not night,
though above the clear outline's of the fell the stars were just
twinkling in the pale blue. Far away under the crag on the further
side of High Fell a light was shining. As Catherine's eyes caught
it there was a quick response in the fine Madonna-like face.

'Any news for me from the Backhouses this afternoon?' she asked
Rose.

'No, I heard of none. How is she?'

'Dying,' said Catherine simply, and stood a moment looking out.
Rose did not interrupt her. She knew that the house from which the
light was shining sheltered a tragedy; she guessed with the vagueness
of nineteen that it was a tragedy of passion and sin; but Catherine
had not been communicative on the subject, and Rose had for some
time past set up a dumb resistance to her sister's most characteristic
ways of life and thought, which prevented her now from asking
questions. She wished nervously to give Catherine's extraordinary
moral strength no greater advantage over her than she could help.