I can't walk."
"That door was locked."
She was fighting valiantly for him.
"I can't walk, father. I don't require a locked door to keep me in."
He was too confused and puzzled to notice the evasion.
"Do you mean to say that you won't let me have you taken home? You
are still going to stay with this man? You know what he is, don't
you?"
"I know what you think he is." She tried to smile, and he looked
away from her quickly and stared around the room, seeing nothing,
however. Suddenly he turned and walked to the door; but he stopped
there, his hand on the knob, and us face twitching.
"Once more, Elinor," he said, "I ask you if you will let me take
you back with me. This is the last time. I have come, after a good
many years of bad feeling, to make my peace with you and to offer
you a home. Will you come?"
"No."
Her courage almost failed her. She lay back, her eyes closed and
her face colorless. The word itself was little more than a whisper.
Her father opened the door and went out. She heard him going down
the stairs, heard other footsteps that followed him, and listened
in an agony of fear that Doyle would drop him in the hall below.
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