"
Connie fell back, deadly pale.
"No--no!" she said. "No--no! I am sartin sure 'tain't that way."
"Yus, but it be that way--I tell yer it be. You ax 'im yerself; there's
no time for muddlin' and a-hidin' o' the truth. You ax the man hisself."
"Father!" said Connie. "Father!"
Harris, wrangling with another workman, was now seen approaching. When
he perceived his daughter and Pickles, his first impulse was to dart
away down a side-street; but Pickles, that most astute young detective,
was too sharp for him.
"No," he said, rushing at the man and laying his hand on his shoulder.
"Giles is bad, an' we can't find Sue no'ow, and yer must tell the
truth."
Harris did not know why his heart thumped so heavily, and why a sort of
wild terror came over him; but when Connie also joined Pickles, and
raising her eyes to the rough man's face, said, "Be it true or be it
lies, you are my own father and I'll niver turn agin yer," her words had
a most startling effect.
Harris trembled from head to foot.
"S'y that agin, wench," he muttered.
"You're mine--I'll not turn agin yer," said Connie.
"Then why--wot 'ave I done to deserve a child like this? There, Pickles!
you know--and you ha' told Connie--it's all the truth. There come a day
w'en I wanted money, an' I were met by sore temptation. I tuk the dimant
locket w'en the pawnbroker 'ad 'is back turned on me; but as I were
leavin' the shop--Sue bein' by my side--I suddenly saw him pokin' his
finger into the place where it had been.
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