Catherine spoke with a kind of dreary triumph: she seemed to have made up her mind to enter into the spirit of her future family, and draw pleasure from the griefs of her enemies.
`You shall be sorry to be yourself presently', said her father-in-law, `if you stand there another minute. Begone, witch, and get your things !'
She scornfully withdrew. In her absence, I began to beg for Zillah's place at the Heights, offering to resign mine to her; but he would suffer it on no account. He bid me be silent; and then, for the first time, allowed himself a glance round the room and a look at the pictures. Having studied Mrs Linton, he said:
`I shall have that home. Not because I need it, but--' He turned abruptly to the fire, and continued, with what, for lack of a better word, I must call a smile--`I'Il tell you what I did yesterday! I got the sexton, who was digging Linton's grave, to remove the earth off her coffin-lid, and I opened it. I thought, once, I would have stayed there: when I saw her face again--it.is hers yet!--he had ~ hard work to stir me; but he said it would change if the air blew on it, and so I struck one side of the coffin loose, and covered it up: not Linton's side, damn him! I wish he'd been soldered in lead. And I bribed the sexton to pull it away when I'm laid there, and slide mine out too; I'll have it made so: and then, by the time Linton gets to us he'll not know which is which dermes!'
`You were very wicked, Mr Heathcliff!' I exclaimed, `were you not ashamed to disturb the dead?
`I disturbed nobody, Nelly,' he replied; `and I gave some ease to myself. I shall be a great deal more comfortable now; and you'll have a better chance of keeping me underground. Disturbed her? No! she has disturbed me, night and day, through eighteen years--incessantly--remorselessly--till yesternight; and yesternight I was tranquil. I dreamt I was sleeping the last sleep by that sleeper, with my heart stopped and my cheek frozen against hers .'