In the summer Edgar asked Catherine to marry him, and she accepted, and she came straight to the kitchen to be told whether she had done wrong. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now, she said, and Hindley has brought him so low. Heathcliff was sitting behind the settle in the shadow, and at that word he rose and went out into the yard. He did not hear the rest. The rest was this: my love for Linton is like the leaves in the woods, which winter changes, and my love for Heathcliff is the eternal rock beneath. He is more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. Nelly, I am Heathcliff. That night the storm broke a tree over the roof, and Heathcliff was gone.