I hit my head on the wooden arm of the sofa over and over, but I could not drive the horror from my mind. My world had just exploded, smashing into smithereens that flew so far and wide there could be no mending it. Heathcliff was gone and it was unbearable.

So I did not bear it.

I broke. I fractured into pieces.

That night marked the end of me. My body lingered on some two months longer, but the Cathy I had been perished.

I was raving. I know that. I don’t remember much of it. Brief flashes, that’s all. I tore pillows with my teeth. I looked in the mirror and did not recognise the face I saw there. I didn’t eat, for Heathcliff had once said he could not stand to see me hungry and so some part of me reasoned if I did not eat he would have to come back. But he did not come. And nor did Edgar. I was alone in my room and nobody cared. Things were so very wrong and I was the cause. My own monstrous stupidity rose up like a vampire and sucked the sanity from me.

Even so, I might have lived had Nelly not been sure that I was imagining the brain fever that took hold of me that night. She thought my ravings were a wicked pretence to frighten my husband and bend him to my will. So Nelly did not inform Edgar I was sick, only that I was sulking in my room and wouldn’t come out. He brooded miserably in the library and no doctor was sent for until it was too late.

While I was tormented by the most dreadful dreams and visions, Heathcliff and Isabella eloped. Foolish, foolish girl! She regretted it before a day had passed, for she quickly discovered I had been telling the truth about Heathcliff’s nature.

Edgar would have nothing more to do with her – he never saw his sister again. But Nelly did. Two months after Heathcliff and Isabella had run away, the newlyweds came back to Wuthering Heights and Nelly called on Isabella.

Through Nelly, Heathcliff discovered I was sick. He talked Nelly into sneaking him in to Thrushcross Grange when Edgar was out so he could see me.

And that I do remember. I remember every detail. Edgar had gone to church and I was glad of it. These last weeks he had watched me constantly, his wide eyes brimming with tears of pity. Edgar had given me such tender care, and I did not like to hurt him. But I did not want to see his face. I did not want to hear his voice. I did not want to feel his fingers caressing my brow. Thrushcross Grange was a prison and Edgar my gentle guard.