Heathcliff now commenced visiting Thrushcross Grange, and gradually established his right to be expected.  A new source of trouble sprang up in an unexpected form—­Isabella Linton evincing a sudden and irresistible attraction towards Heathcliff.  At that time she was a charming young lady of eighteen.  I tried to persuade her to banish him from her thoughts.

“He’s a bird of bad omen, miss,” I said, “and no mate for you.  How has he been living?  How has he got rich?  Why is he staying at Wuthering Heights in the house of the man whom he abhors?  They say Mr. Earnshaw is worse and worse since he came.  They sit up all night together continually, and Hindley has been borrowing money on his land, and does nothing but play and drink.”

“You are leagued with the rest,” she replied, “and I’ll not listen to your slanders.”  The antipathy of Mr. Linton towards Heathcliff reached a point at last at which he called on his servants one day to turn him out of the Grange, whereupon Heathcliff’s revenge took the form of an elopement with Linton’s sister.  Six weeks later I received a letter of bitter regret from Isabella, asking me distractedly whether I thought her husband was a man or a devil, and how I had preserved the common sympathies of human nature at Wuthering Heights, where they had returned.

On receiving this letter, I obtained permission from Mr. Linton to go to the Heights to see his sister, and Heathcliff, on meeting me, urged me to secure for him an interview with Catherine.

“Nelly,” said he, “you know as well as I do that for every thought she spends on Linton she spends a thousand on me.  If he loved her 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.”

Well, I argued, and refused, but in the long run he forced me to agree to put a missive into Mrs. Linton’s hand.

When he met her, I saw that he could hardly bear, for downright agony, to look into her face, for he was stricken with the conviction that she was fated to die.

“Oh, Cathy, how can I bear it?” was the first sentence he uttered.

“You and Edgar have broken my heart, Heathcliff,” was her reply.  “You have killed me and thriven on it, I think.”

“Are you possessed with a devil,” he asked, “to talk in that manner to me when you are dying?  You know you lie to say I have killed you, and you know that I could as soon forget my existence as forget you.  Is it not sufficient that while you are at peace, I shall be in the torments of hell?”

“I shall not be at peace,” moaned Catherine.

“Why did you despise me?  Why did you betray your own heart?  You loved me.  What right had you to leave me?”

“Let me alone!” sobbed Catherine.  “I’ve done wrong, and I’m dying for it!  Forgive me!”