"You mean he's tubercular?"

"Yes."

Nance's eyes widened.

"Does he know it?"

"No. I shall wait and tell his father. I wouldn't undertake to break the
news to that mother of his for a house and lot! You take the case
to-night, and I'll operate in the morning--"

"No, no, please, Doctor! Mr. Clarke wouldn't want me."

"Mr. Clarke will be satisfied with whatever arrangement I see fit to
make. Besides another nurse will be in charge by the time he arrives."

"But, Doctor--"

A stern glance silenced her, and she went out, closing the door as hard
as she dared behind her. During her four years at the hospital the
memory of Mac Clarke had grown fainter and fainter like the perfume of a
fading flower. But the memory of Dan was like a thorn in her flesh,
buried deep, but never forgotten.

To herself, her fellow-nurses, the young internes who invariably fell in
love with her, she declared gaily that she was "through with men
forever." The subject that excited her fiercest scorn was matrimony, and
she ridiculed sentiment with the superior attitude of one who has weighed