“You suppose she has nearly forgotten me?” he said. “Oh Nelly! you know she has not! You know as well as I do that for every thought she spends on Linton she spends a thousand on me! At a most miserable period of my life I had a notion of the kind: it haunted me on my return to the neighbourhood last summer; but only her own assurance could make me admit the horrible idea again. And then, Linton would be nothing, nor Hindlev, nor all the dreams that ever I dreamt. Two words would comprehend my future—death and hell: existence, after losing her, would be hell. Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton’s attachment more than mine. If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn t love as much in eighty years as I could in a day. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have: the sea could be as readily contained in that horse-trough as her whole affection be monopolised by him. Tush! He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog or her horse. It is not in him to be loved like me: how can she love in him what he has not?”
