"Your dinner is here," I returned: "why won't you get it?"
"I don't want it now," he muttered hastily. "I'll wait till supper. And, Nelly, once for all, let me beg you to warn Hareton and the other away from me. I wish to be troubled by nobody--I wish to have this place to myself."
"Is there some new reason for this banishment?" I inquired. "Tell me why you are so queer, Mr. Heathcliff. Where were you last night? I'm not putting the question through idle curiosity, but--"
"You are putting the question through very idle curiosity," he interrupted, with a laugh. "Yet I'll answer it. Last night I was on the threshold of hell. To-day I am within sight of my heaven--I have my eyes on it--hardly three feet to sever me. And now you'd better go. You'll neither see nor hear anything to frighten you if you refrain from prying."
Having swept the hearth and wiped the table, I departed more perplexed than ever. He did not quit the house again that afternoon, and no one intruded on his solitude till at eight o'clock I deemed it proper, though unsummoned, to carry a candle and his supper to him.
He was leaning against the ledge of an open lattice, but not looking out; his face was turned to the interior gloom. The fire had smoldered to ashes; the room was filled with the damp, mild air of the cloudy evening; and so still, that not only the murmur of the beck down Gimmerton was distinguishable, but its ripples, and its gurgling over the pebbles, or through the large stones which it could not cover.
I uttered an ejaculation of discontent at seeing the dismal grate, and commenced shutting the casements, one after another, till I came to his.
"Must I close this?" I asked, in order to rouse him, for he would not stir.
The light flashed on his features as I spoke. O Mr. Lockwood, I cannot express what a terrible start I got by the momentary view! Those deep black eyes! That smile and ghastly paleness! It appeared to me not Mr. Heathcliff, but a goblin; and in my terror I let the candle bend toward the wall, and it left me in darkness.
"Yes, close it," he replied in his familiar voice. "There, that is pure awkwardness! Why did you hold the candle horizontally? Be quick, and bring another."