"It's me, father!" called Connie back. "It's Connie!"
"Don't want yer—get away!" said the voice.
Connie knelt down and called through the keyhole:
"It's me—I've 'ad a dreadful time—let me in."
"Go 'way—don't want yer—get out o' this!"
"Oh father—father!" called Connie. She began to sob. After all her dreams, after all her longings, after all her cruel trials—to be treated like this, and by her father! It seemed to shake her very belief in fathers, even in the great Father of all.
"Please—please—I'm jest wanting yer awfu' bad!" she pleaded.
Her gentle and moving voice—that voice for which Peter Harris, when sober and in his right mind, so starved to hear again—now acted upon him in quite the opposite direction. He had not taken enough to make him stupid, only enough to rouse his worst passions. He strode across the room, flung the door wide, and lifting Connie from her knees, said to her:
"Listen. You left me without rhyme or reason—not even a word or a thought. I sorrowed for yer till I turned to 'ate yer! Now then, get out o' this. I don't want yer, niver no more. Go down them stairs, unless yer want me to push yer down. Go 'way—and be quick!"
There was a scowl on his angry face, a ferocious look in his eyes. Connie turned quite gently, and without any apparent anger went downstairs.