‘My father is very ill,’ she said; ‘and why am I called from his bedside? Why didn’t you send to absolve me from my promise, when you wished I wouldn’t keep it? Come! I desire an explanation: playing and trifling are completely banished out of my mind; and I can’t dance attendance on your affections now!’
He approached once more, and made as if he would seize the fragile being; but, shrinking back, Linton clung to his cousin, and implored her to accompany him, with a frantic importunity that admitted no denial . . . We reached the threshold; Catherine walked in, and I stood waiting till she had conducted the invalid to a chair, expecting her out immediately; when Mr. Heathcliff, pushing me forward, exclaimed—‘My house is not stricken with the plague, Nelly; and I have a mind to be hospitable today[.]’
All was composed, however: Catherine’s despair was as silent as her father’s joy. She supported him calmly, in appearance; and he fixed on her features his raised eyes that seemed dilating with ecstasy . . . He died blissfully . . . Kissing her cheek, he murmured, --‘I am going to her; and you, darling child, shall come to us!’ and never stirred or spoke again[.]
‘But I’m glad I’ve a better, to forgive it; and I know he loves me, and for that reason I love him. Mr. Heathcliff, you have nobody to love you; and, however miserable you make us, we all still have the revenge of thinking that your cruelty arises from your greater misery. You are miserable, are you not? . . . nobody will cry for you when you die!’
Heathcliff went up once, to show her Linton’s will. He had bequeathed the whole of his, and what had been her, moveable property, to his father: the poor creature was threatened, or coaxed, into that act during her week’s absence, when his uncle died . . . Catherine, destitute of cash and friends, cannot disturb his possession.
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