For four weeks, Lockwood has been ill, and Heathcliff has sent him “a brace of grouse” (65). Nelly continues the story while supervising Lockwood’s medication regime.

Six months into the marriage between Catherine and Edgar, all is well, until Heathcliff returns to Wuthering Heights unexpectedly. He is a changed man; “[h]e had grown a tall, athletic, well-formed man; beside whom, my master seemed quite slender and youth-like” (69). Soon, Edgar feels jealous of Catherine’s enthusiasm over Heathcliff’s return. She is so moved by his appearance that she “could neither eat nor drink,” and Catherine later reports to Nelly that when she praised Heathcliff to Edgar, “he, either for a headache or a pang of envy, began to cry” (70). Heathcliff has explained his reason for returning to Wuthering Heights to Catherine, who explains to Nelly that Heathcliff has “a wish to install himself in quarters at walking distance from the Grange, and an attachment to the house where we lived together” (71).

Heathcliff takes advantage of his proximity to Thrushcross Grange by coming to visit often, and soon, Isabella Linton develops “a sudden and irresistible attraction towards the tolerated guest” (72). Catherine in turn mocks Isabella for her desire for Heathcliff, pointing out cruelly that Isabella’s inheritance is the most appealing of her qualities to a man like Heathcliff, who does nothing but “sit up all night together [with Hindley] [.