Wuthering Heights

conscience had turned his heart to an earthly hell.  I wondered
greatly how it would end.  Though he seldom before had revealed
this state of mind, even by looks, it was his habitual mood, I had
no doubt:  he asserted it himself; but not a soul, from his general
bearing, would have conjectured the fact.  You did not when you saw
him, Mr. Lockwood:  and at the period of which I speak, he was just
the same as then; only fonder of continued solitude, and perhaps
still more laconic in company.



CHAPTER XXXIV



FOR some days after that evening Mr. Heathcliff shunned meeting us
at meals; yet he would not consent formally to exclude Hareton and
Cathy.  He had an aversion to yielding so completely to his
feelings, choosing rather to absent himself; and eating once in
twenty-four hours seemed sufficient sustenance for him.

One night, after the family were in bed, I heard him go downstairs,
and out at the front door.  I did not hear him re-enter, and in the
morning I found he was still away.  We were in April then:  the
weather was sweet and warm, the grass as green as showers and sun
could make it, and the two dwarf apple-trees near the southern wall
in full bloom.  After breakfast, Catherine insisted on my bringing
a chair and sitting with my work under the fir-trees at the end of
the house; and she beguiled Hareton, who had perfectly recovered
from his accident, to dig and arrange her little garden, which was
shifted to that corner by the influence of Joseph's complaints.  I
was comfortably revelling in the spring fragrance around, and the
beautiful soft blue overhead, when my young lady, who had run down
near the gate to procure some primrose roots for a border, returned
only half laden, and informed us that Mr. Heathcliff was coming in.
'And he spoke to me,' she added, with a perplexed countenance.

'What did he say?' asked Hareton.

'He told me to begone as fast as I could,' she answered.  'But he
looked so different from his usual look that I stopped a moment to
stare at him.'

'How?' he inquired.

'Why, almost bright and cheerful.  No, ALMOST nothing - VERY MUCH
excited, and wild, and glad!' she replied.

'Night-walking amuses him, then,' I remarked, affecting a careless
manner:  in reality as surprised as she was, and anxious to
ascertain the truth of her statement; for to see the master looking
glad would not be an every-day spectacle.  I framed an excuse to go
in.  Heathcliff stood at the open door; he was pale, and he
trembled:  yet, certainly, he had a strange joyful glitter in his
eyes, that altered the aspect of his whole face.

'Will you have some breakfast?' I said.  'You must be hungry,
rambling about all night!'  I wanted to discover where he had been,
but I did not like to ask directly.

'No, I'm not hungry,' he answered, averting his head, and speaking
rather contemptuously, as if he guessed I was trying to divine the
occasion of his good humour.

I felt perplexed:  I didn't know whether it were not a proper
opportunity to offer a bit of admonition.

'I don't think it right to wander out of doors,' I observed,
'instead of being in bed:  it is not wise, at any rate this moist
season.  I daresay you'll catch a bad cold or a fever:  you have
something the matter with you now!'

'Nothing but what I can bear,' he replied; 'and with the greatest
pleasure, provided you'll leave me alone:  get in, and don't annoy
me.'

I obeyed:  and, in passing, I noticed he breathed as fast as a cat.

'Yes!' I reflected to myself, 'we shall have a fit of illness.  I
cannot conceive what he has been doing.'

That noon he sat down to dinner with us, and received a heaped-up
plate from my hands, as if he intended to make amends for previous
fasting.

'I've neither cold nor fever, Nelly,' he remarked, in allusion to
my morning's speech; 'and I'm ready to do justice to the food you
give me.'

He took his knife and fork, and was going to commence eating, when
the inclination appeared to become suddenly extinct.  He laid them
on the table, looked eagerly towards the window, then rose and went
out.  We saw him walking to and fro in the garden while we
concluded our meal, and Earnshaw said he'd go and ask why he would
not dine:  he thought we had grieved him some way.

'Well, is he coming?' cried Catherine, when her cousin returned.

'Nay,' he answered; 'but he's not angry:  he seemed rarely pleased
indeed; only I made him impatient by speaking to him twice; and