Gather whiskers responsible for pain (9)

I believe the answer is:

heartache

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'for pain' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)

'gather whiskers' is the wordplay.
'gather' becomes 'hear'.
'whiskers' becomes 'tache' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'hear'+'tache'='HEARTACHE'

'responsible' is the link.
This may not be right. It may belong to another bit of the clue.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for heartache that I've seen before include "Grief" , "Emotional distress" , "Agony of Love" , "Suffering" , "Great sadness" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.

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