Wuthering Heights

Catherine's, with all their beauty annihilated.
    »What's your business here?« he demanded, grimly. »Who are you?«
    »My name
was
Isabella Linton,« I replied. »You've seen me before, sir. I'm lately married to Mr. Heathcliff; and he has brought me here – I suppose by your permission.«
    »Is he come back, then?« asked the hermit, glaring like a hungry wolf.
    »Yes – we came just now,« I said; »but he left me by the kitchen door; and when I would have gone in, your little boy played sentinel over the place, and frightened me off by the help of a bull-dog.«
    »It's well the hellish villain has kept his word!« growled my future host, searching the darkness beyond me in expectation of discovering Heathcliff, and then he indulged in a soliloquy of execrations, and threats of what he would have done had the ›fiend‹ deceived him.
    I repented having tried this second entrance; and was almost inclined to slip away before he finished cursing, but ere I could execute that intention, he ordered me in, and shut and re- fastened the door.
    There was a great fire, and that was all the light in the huge apartment, whose floor had grown a uniform grey; and the once brilliant pewter dishes which used to attract my gaze when I was a girl partook of a similar obscurity, created by tarnish and dust.
    I inquired whether I might call the maid, and be conducted to a bed-room? Mr. Earnshaw vouchsafed no answer. He walked up and down, with his hands in his pockets, apparently quite forgetting my presence; and his abstraction was evidently so deep, and his whole aspect so misanthropical, that I shrank from disturbing him again.
    You'll not be surprised, Ellen, at my feeling particularly cheerless, seated in worse than solitude, on that inhospitable hearth, and remembering that four miles distant lay my delightful home, containing the only people I loved on earth: and there might as well be the Atlantic to part us, instead of those four miles, I could not overpass them!
    I questioned with myself – where must I turn for comfort? and – mind you don't tell Edgar, or Catherine – above every sorrow beside, this rose pre-eminent – despair at finding nobody who could or would be my ally against Heathcliff!
    I had sought shelter at Wuthering Heights, almost gladly, because I was secured by that arrangement from living alone with him; but he knew the people we were coming amongst, and he did not fear their intermeddling.
    I sat and thought a doleful time; the clock struck eight, and nine, and still my companion paced to and fro, his head bent on his breast, and perfectly silent, unless a groan, or a bitter ejaculation forced itself out at intervals.
    I listened to detect a woman's voice in the house, and filled the interim with wild regrets, and dismal anticipations, which, at last, spoke audibly in irrepressible sighing, and weeping.
    I was not aware how openly I grieved, till Earnshaw halted opposite, in his measured walk, and gave me a stare of newly awakened surprise. Taking advantage of his recovered attention, I exclaimed –
    »I'm tired with my journey, and I want to go to bed! Where is the maid-servant? Direct me to her, as she won't come to me!«
    »We have none,« he answered; »you must wait on yourself!«
    »Where must I sleep, then?« I sobbed – I was beyond regarding self-respect, weighed down by fatigue and wretchedness.
    »Joseph will show you Heathcliff's chamber,« said he; »open that door – he's in there.«
    I was going to obey, but he suddenly arrested me, and added in the strangest tone –
    »Be so good as to turn your lock, and draw your bolt – don't omit it!«
    »Well!« I said. »But why, Mr. Earnshaw?« I did not relish the notion of deliberately fastening my self in with Heathcliff.
    »Look here!« he replied, pulling from his waistcoat a curiously constructed pistol, having a double edged spring knife attached to the barrel. »That's a great tempter to a desperate man, is it not? I cannot resist going up with this every night, and trying his door. If once I find it open he's done for! I do it invariably, even though the minute before I have been recalling a hundred reasons that should make me refrain – it is some devil that urges me to thwart my own schemes by killing him – you fight against that devil, for love, as long as you may; when the time comes, not all the angels in heaven shall save him!«
    I surveyed the weapon inquisitively; – a hideous notion struck me. How powerful I