“Tell us, sir,” Emily commanded, her eyes flashing, “for you are caught and you will hang. Your only hope for redemption is to help try to save the boy while we still may.”

“Why cannot you believe that I don’t have him, nor do I know where he is?” Clifton howled, his voice as elemental and as raw and wicked as the wind that tore at every stone and tile of Top Withens Hall.

“There is more than enough to draw the conclusion of your guilt,” Papa spoke, lifting his hand forward as if he might somehow search Bradshaw out by touch, or perhaps even bless him. “Confess your sins, and I will pray for you before the constable arrives.”

“Any path that you have followed to find me guilty has been laid false,” Clifton said bitterly. “I did not kill that poor child who was hidden in my walls or any other. I did not take Joseph, and I wish with all of my rotten heart that I knew where your son is hidden, but I do not.” Shaking Branwell off, Clifton staggered into a chair, convulsed with a fit of coughing.

“Father, are you ill?” Liston asked unhappily. “Pa, it’s me, your Liston. I know you are not what they say you are, Pa. Mother could never have loved such a man, and she loved you.”

“But I am,” Bradshaw told his son. “My sins are many, and I should hang for them. I could have saved Joseph if I’d spoken up earlier.”

“What do you mean, Pa?” Liston shook his head, kneeling at his father’s feet. “Spoken up about what?”

“What you must understand is how much I loved her, love her. Not a normal kind of love either, not the good healing kind that I felt for your mother. No, she were like a sickness that gets into your blood and poisons everything. I knew what she did back then, years ago, and I never spoke of it. And when she came here, then I knew too that it must have been her who killed the boy and hid him here. But I didn’t say anything, because to see her again was to love her again, just as I had when I was a boy. She always knew I’d die for her, and she was right. I was ready to. I was ready to until tonight and the thought of that poor lad, lost out here somewhere. It was like I awoke from a dream that’s kept me captive half my life, even when I didn’t set eyes on her for years on end. But not tonight. No longer will I let her keep my heart in her clutches.”

Bradshaw looked up, meeting the gaze of everyone who stood around him so that they might see the truth in his eyes. “I know who took Joseph.”