“They won’t do that,” he replied: “if they did, you must have me removed secretly; and if you neglect it you shall prove, practically, that the dead are not annihilated!”
As soon as he heard the other members of the family stirring he retired to his den, and I breathed freer.
But in the afternoon, while Joseph and Hareton were at their work, he came into the kitchen again, and, with a wild look, bid me come and sit in the house: he wanted somebody with him.
I declined; telling him plainly that his strange talk and manner frightened me, and I had neither the nerve nor the will to be his companion alone.
“I believe you think me a fiend,” he said, with his dismal laugh: “something too horrible to live under a decent roof.”
Then turning to Catherine, who was there, and who drew behind me at his approach, he added, half sneeringly—“Will you come, chuck? I’ll not hurt you. No! to you I’ve made myself worse than the devil. Well, there is one who won’t shrink from my company! By God! she’s relentless. Oh, damn it! It’s unutterably too much for flesh and blood to bear—even mine.”
He solicited the society of no one more. At dusk he went into his chamber.
Through the whole night, and far into the morning, we heard him groaning and murmuring to himself.
Hareton was anxious to enter; but I bid him fetch Mr. Kenneth, and he should go in and see him. When he came, and I requested admittance and tried to open the door, I found it locked; and Heathcliff bid us be damned. He was better, and would be left alone; so the doctor went away.