don't care to repeat.

'"I shall not meddle in the matter," I retorted again. "Come in and get
shot, if you please. I've done my duty."

'With that I shut the window and returned to my place by the fire; having
too small a stock of hypocrisy at my command to pretend any anxiety for
the danger that menaced him. Earnshaw swore passionately at me:
affirming that I loved the villain yet; and calling me all sorts of names
for the base spirit I evinced. And I, in my secret heart (and conscience
never reproached me), thought what a blessing it would be for _him_
should Heathcliff put him out of misery; and what a blessing for _me_
should he send Heathcliff to his right abode! As I sat nursing these
reflections, the casement behind me was banged on to the floor by a blow
from the latter individual, and his black countenance looked blightingly
through. The stanchions stood too close to suffer his shoulders to
follow, and I smiled, exulting in my fancied security. His hair and
clothes were whitened with snow, and his sharp cannibal teeth, revealed
by cold and wrath, gleamed through the dark.

'"Isabella, let me in, or I'll make you repent!" he "girned," as Joseph
calls it.

'"I cannot commit murder," I replied. "Mr. Hindley stands sentinel with
a knife and loaded pistol."

'"Let me in by the kitchen door," he said.

'"Hindley will be there before me," I answered: "and that's a poor love
of yours that cannot bear a shower of snow! We were left at peace in our
beds as long as the summer moon shone, but the moment a blast of winter
returns, you must run for shelter! Heathcliff, if I were you, I'd go
stretch myself over her grave and die like a faithful dog. The world is
surely not worth living in now, is it? You had distinctly impressed on
me the idea that Catherine was the whole joy of your life: I can't
imagine how you think of surviving her loss."

'"He's there, is he?" exclaimed my companion, rushing to the gap. "If I
can get my arm out I can hit him!"

'I'm afraid, Ellen, you'll set me down as really wicked; but you don't
know all, so don't judge. I wouldn't have aided or abetted an attempt on
even _his_ life for anything. Wish that he were dead, I must; and
therefore I was fearfully disappointed, and unnerved by terror for the
consequences of my taunting speech, when he flung himself on Earnshaw's
weapon and wrenched it from his grasp.

'The charge exploded, and the knife, in springing back, closed int