“Don’t torture me till I’m as mad as yourself,” Heathcliff said, jerking his head out of my grasp and moving away. He swallowed my anger and spat it back out. “Are you possessed to talk like this while you’re dying? Consider that those words will burn themselves in my memory, eating deeper for eternity! You lie to say I killed you, Cathy, and you know I could not forget you as much as I could forget my own existence. Is it not sufficient for your damned selfishness that while you shall be at peace I shall writhe in Hell?”

“I shall not be at peace!” I cried. “I’m not wishing you more torment than I have. I only wish us never to be parted. If a word of mine distresses you, I shall feel that same distress underground. Come back here. You never harmed me in my life. Don’t be angry, not now. That will be worse for you to remember than my foolish words. Come back!”

But he would not. Heathcliff walked to the fireplace and stood raging with his back to me. And my mind slipped and I had the strangest feeling that it was not Heathcliff that stood there but an imposter.

“That is not my Heathcliff,” I told Nelly. “I shall love mine and take him with me – he’s in my soul. I shall escape this prison and fly into the glory of the world. I will see it clearly, not through tears, and I shall feel it fresh and bright, not with an aching heart.”

The man at the fireplace turned and it was Heathcliff after all, his eyes wide and wet, his chest heaving with sobs. I so longed for him that I stood and tried to walk across the room.

I must have fallen, and Heathcliff must have caught me. For he was holding me. I tried to wipe away his tears, but they came too fast.

“How cruel you’ve been – cruel and false,” Heathcliff said. “Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I cannot give you one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. You may kiss me and cry and wring out my kisses and tears and they will damn you to Hell. You loved me – what right had you to leave me? Why did you choose Edgar Linton? Nothing would have parted us – not misery nor degradation nor death – nothing that God or Satan could inflict. But you did it, of your own will. I have not broken your heart, you have broken mine. It is so much worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you … oh, God, I cannot think of it! Would you like to live with your soul in the grave?”