“‘I shall not know till it comes,’ he said, ’I’m only half conscious of it now.’”

A few days pass.  He grows more and more abstracted and detached.  One morning Nelly Dean finds him downstairs, risen late.

“I put a basin of coffee before him.  He drew it nearer, and then rested his arms on the table, and looked at the opposite wall, as I supposed, surveying one particular portion, up and down, with glittering, restless eyes, and with such eager interest that he stopped breathing during half a minute together....

“‘Mr. Heathcliff! master!’ I cried, ’don’t, for God’s sake stare as if you saw an unearthly vision.’

“‘Don’t, for God’s sake, shout so loud,’ he replied.  ’Turn round, and tell me, are we by ourselves?’

“‘Of course,’ was my answer, ‘of course we are.’

“Still, I involuntarily obeyed him, as if I were not quite sure.  With a sweep of his hand he cleared a space in front of the breakfast-things, and leant forward more at his ease.

“Now I perceived that he was not looking at the wall; for, when I regarded him alone, it seemed exactly that he gazed at something within two yards’ distance.  And, whatever it was, it communicated, apparently, both pleasure and pain in exquisite extremes:  at least the anguished, yet raptured, expression of his countenance suggested that idea.  The fancied object was not fixed:  either his eyes pursued it with unwearied diligence, and, even in speaking to me, were never weaned away.  I vainly reminded him of his protracted abstinence from food:  if he stirred to touch anything in compliance with my entreaties, if he stretched his hand out to get a piece of bread, his fingers clenched before they reached it, and remained on the table, forgetful of their aim.”

He cannot sleep; and at dawn of the next day he comes to the door of his room—­Cathy’s room—­and calls Nelly to him.  She remonstrates with him for his neglect of his body’s health, and of his soul’s.

“’Your cheeks are hollow, and your eyes bloodshot, like a person starving with hunger, and going blind with loss of sleep.’

“‘It is not my fault that I cannot eat or rest,’ he said....  ’I’ll do both as soon as I possibly can ... as to repenting of my injustices, I’ve done no injustice, and I repent of nothing.  I am too happy; and yet I’m not happy enough.  My soul’s bliss kills my body, but does not satisfy itself.’” ...  “In the afternoon, while Joseph and Hareton were at their work, he came into the kitchen again, and, with a wild look, bid me come and sit in the house:  he wanted somebody with him.  I declined; telling him plainly that his strange talk and manner frightened me, and I had neither the nerve nor the will to be his companion alone.

“‘I believe you think me a fiend,’ he said, with his dismal laugh:  ‘something too horrible to live under a decent roof.’  Then, turning to Catherine, who was there, and who drew behind me at his approach, he added, half sneeringly:  ’Will you come, chuck?  I’ll not hurt you.  No! to you I’ve made myself worse than the devil.  Well, there is one who won’t shrink from my company!  By God! she’s relentless.  Oh, damn it!  It’s unutterably too much for flesh and blood to bear—­even mine.’”