If I told Nelly that, she’d have died of shock on the spot. Already she was saying, “Either you do not know what it is to be a wife or you’re a wicked, devious girl. Don’t tell me any more of your secrets. I won’t keep them.”

Nelly said no more, for the kitchen door opened and the farm lads came in for their supper. Nelly handed me Hareton to mind while she fetched them food. The farm hands ate, but Heathcliff did not join them. Nelly went to the stable to fetch him in, but she came back alone.

And only then did she whisper to me that Heathcliff had been sitting in the high backed chair when Nelly and I had been talking, where I could not see him. He’d heard me say it would degrade me to marry him, but no more, for at that moment he’d left the room.

I cannot begin to describe the horror I felt. I went dashing out into the night, hysterical. I screamed and screamed his name and when Heathcliff did not answer I ran back to the house and told Nelly to send the farm lads after him. He must be brought back. He must. I needed to speak to him.

They could find no trace of him. A storm was gathering and Nelly said the rain would bring Heathcliff home, but it did not. And so I went out again, running, walking, staggering along the road calling his name. I kept on until I was soaked to the skin and my teeth chattered so hard I could call no more.

By the time I got back home, Nelly had gone to bed. But I could not. I sat and waited and the fire died and so did the storm and still Heathcliff did not come. I sat there until the first rays of the morning sun woke my brother and he came down the stairs to find me sitting wet and cold and sick with grieving.

I cannot say what happened after that. I took a fever and the days and nights that followed were a blur of utter misery. I was really dreadfully ill for a very long time. I’m told Edgar’s mother came calling and that when I was strong enough to be moved she carried me off to Thrushcross Grange to recover, but I’ve no memory of it. Perhaps it’s just as well. Mrs Linton caught the fever from me and did not recover as I did. And nor did her husband. By the time I returned to Wuthering Heights, Edgar and Isabella Linton were orphans.

Three years passed. Three years in which I heard not a word from Heathcliff. There was no message carried by the baker’s lad. No letter. No note. Nothing. It drove me out of my mind – to be left utterly in the dark, to not know what Heathcliff did, what he thought, what he felt, what he suffered, whether he lived or died even. I could not rest nor be active – nothing stopped the missing of him itching under my skin until I wanted to peel it off my bones. I was in agony every waking moment and when I slept I dreamed of him. I was being tortured on a rack and there seemed no end to the pain.