The moment her regard ceased, I would have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood! But, till then--if you don't believe me, you don't know me--till then, I would have died by inches before I touched a single hair of his head!' 'And yet,' I interrupted, 'you have no scruples in completely ruining all hopes of her perfect restoration, by thrusting yourself into her remembrance now, when she has nearly forgotten you, and involving her in a new tumult of discord and distress.' '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 Hindley, 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.