The weeks went by. Harris grew accustomed to his sense of guilt, and Sue
to her captivity. Pickles was anxiously looking forward to a crisis.
Harris, after giving way to drink for several days, refrained again and
worked steadily. He brought in, in consequence, good wages, and Connie
and Giles wanted for nothing. It was the one salve to his conscience,
this making of Giles comfortable; otherwise, notwithstanding the
manifest amendment of his ways, he was scarcely happy. Indeed, Pickles
took care that he should not be so. In the most unlikely and unexpected
places this dreadful boy would dart upon him, and more and more certain
was Harris that he not only knew his secret, but had witnessed his
guilt. Harris would have fled miles from the boy, but the boy would not
be fled from. He acted as a perpetual blister on the man's already sore
conscience, and Harris almost hated him.
His first resolve to confide in Pickles and bribe him into silence had
long ago died away. He dared not even offer to bribe him; the perfectly
fearless and uncorrupt spirit which looked out of the eyes of the boy
would be, he knew, proof against all that he could do in the matter of
either rewards or punishments. No; all that Harris could do was to
maintain as imperturbable a spirit as possible while Pickles expatiated
upon the cruel fate of Sue. As far as he could dare question him, he
learned from Pickles that Sue had not been yet tried even before the
magistrate.
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