ched a single hair of his head!'

'And yet,' I interrupted, 'you have no scruples in completely ruining all
hopes of her perfect restoration, by thrusting yourself into her
remembrance now, when she has nearly forgotten you, and involving her in
a new tumult of discord and distress.'

'You suppose she has nearly forgotten me?' he said. 'Oh, Nelly! you know
she has not! You know as well as I do, that for every thought she spends
on Linton she spends a thousand on me! At a most miserable period of my
life, I had a notion of the kind: it haunted me on my return to the
neighbourhood last summer; but only her own assurance could make me admit
the horrible idea again. And then, Linton would be nothing, nor Hindley,
nor all the dreams that ever I dreamt. Two words would comprehend my
future--_death_ and _hell_: existence, after losing her, would be hell.
Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's
attachment more than mine. If he loved with all the powers of his puny
being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years as I could in a day. And
Catherine has a heart as deep as I have: the sea could be as readily
contained in that horse-trough as her whole affection be monopolised by
him. Tush! He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her
horse. It is not in him to be loved like me: how can she love in him
what he has not?'

'Catherine and Edgar are as fond of each other as any two people can be,'
cried Isabella, with sudden vivacity. 'No one has a right to talk in
that manner, and I won't hear my brother depreciated in silence!'

'Your brother is wondrous fond of you too, isn't he?' observed
Heathcliff, scornfully. 'He turns you adrift on the world with
surprising alacrity.'

'He is not aware of what I suffer,' she replied. 'I didn't tell him
that.'

'You have been telling him something, then: you have written, have you?'

'To say that I was married, I did write--you saw the note.'

'And nothing since?'

'No.'

'My young lady is looking sadly the worse for her change of condition,' I
remarked. 'Somebody's love comes short in her case, obviously; whose, I
may guess; but, perhaps, I shouldn't say.'

'I should guess it was her own,' said Heathcliff. 'She degenerates into
a mere slut! She is tired of trying to please me uncommonly early. You'd
hardly credit it, but the very morrow of our wedding she was weeping to
go home. However, she'll suit this house so much the