“Leave me alone,” I said. “If I’ve done wrong, I’m dying for it. It is enough. You left me, but I won’t scold you. I forgive you. Forgive me!”

“Oh, Cathy! I forgive what you have done to me. But how can I forgive what you’ve done to yourself! How can I?”

We were silent then. I buried my face in Heathcliff’s shoulder. His face was against my neck. And we wept and wept at what we had come to.

And blasted Nelly Dean said, “Church service is over. Master will be back in half an hour.”

We only held each other tighter. Time shrank and half an hour seemed to pass in a single breath.

“He is here!” Nelly fretted.

“I must go, Cathy,” Heathcliff said. “But I’ll see you again before you sleep. I won’t stray five yards from your window.”

“You must not go!” I said, for I could not bear it. “You shall not leave me again.”

“Just for one hour.”

“Not for a minute.”

“I must,” Heathcliff said. “Edgar will be up immediately.”

But I clung to him fast. “No! Don’t, don’t go! It is the last time! Heathcliff, I shall die. I shall die!”

“Hush, my darling. Hush, hush, Cathy!” Heathcliff held me to his heart. “I’ll stay,” he said. “If Edgar shoots me, I’ll die with your kisses on my lips.”

Those words were the last I heard, and his kiss the last thing I felt.

Chapter 17

I have heard Nelly tell folk what happened next many times since, for the woman loves to gossip. By her account I fell into a faint and Edgar was too concerned for me to care about what Heathcliff did or where he went.

At about midnight I was delivered of a daughter. Two hours later, without ever regaining consciousness, I slipped from the body that confined me. And I was right thinking I had no business to be in Heaven, for instead of rising up I stayed here on Earth.

So I saw Heathcliff standing as stiff as a piece of timber beneath the trees. Nelly slipped out to give him the news of my passing, and I heard her telling him I lay with a sweet smile on my face as if in a gentle dream. Nelly said she prayed I’d wake as sweetly in the other world.

And I heard my darling Heathcliff cursing me and wishing I might wake in the same torment as him. “She’s a liar to the end!” he said. “Where is she? Not there … not in Heaven … not perished … where?”

“I am here,” I said. But Heathcliff could not hear me.