“Mr. Markham, were you one of a number of boys employed out of Halifax the summer of that year up at Top Withens Hall?”

“I was.” Mr. Markham smiled faintly. “Though it would hardly be described as a happy time, at least it took me away from this place for a summer, and I was grateful of that.”

Anne glanced at her sisters before continuing. “And do you remember any children who vanished from Crossed Keys or Top Withens that summer? Presumed runaways, perhaps?”

“I cannot say precisely,” Mr. Markham said, dropping his gaze and turning away from them, a distinct posture of unease threading its way through his stance.

“What do you mean by ‘precisely’?” Charlotte asked him—she had been sitting quietly, content to observe, but now she rose to her feet, walking to where Mr. Markham was standing. Though he was not a tall man, she was obliged to turn her face up to meet his gaze.

“To run away, even from Crossed Keys, was to run into the arms of death,” Mr. Markham said. “Every boy here knows the truth of that, both now and then. We knew that on the street we’d most likely have to thieve or worse in order to survive. In here we had a chance—a small one, but it was a chance. There was a boy they said ran away, but . . . I could never make sense of such a story.”

“Please, Mr. Markham, tell us about this boy,” Anne said, glancing at Emily. Could it be that they were about to discover the name of the Top Withens child? The thought filled Anne with a swirl of conflicting emotions, bringing to mind the images of those poor, forlorn, abandoned bones and, worse still, of Joseph Earnshaw at the mercy of a madman.