Miss Molloy makes him laugh and helps him to forget the pain.
He's taken a tremendous fancy to her."
"Yes, he had quite a fancy for her once before."
"Now, Macpherson, how can you?" cried Mrs. Clarke on the verge of tears.
"Just because the boy made one slip when he was little more than a
_child_, you suspect his every motive. I don't see how you can be so
cruel! If you had seen his agony, if you had been through what I have--"
Thus it happened that instead of keeping Nance out of Mac's sight, Mrs.
Clarke left no stone unturned to get her back, and Mr. Clarke was even
persuaded to take it up personally with Dr. Adair.
Nance might have held out to the end, had her sympathies not been
profoundly stirred by the crushing effect the news of Mac's serious
tubercular condition had upon his parents. On the day they were told Mr.
Clarke paced the corridor for hours with slow steps and bent head,
refusing to see people or to answer the numerous inquiries over the
telephone. As for Mrs. Clarke, all the fragile prettiness and girlish
grace she had carried over into maturity, seemed to fall away from her
within the hour, leaving her figure stooped and her face settled into
lines of permanent anxiety.
The mother's chief concern now was to break the news of his condition to
Mac, who was already impatiently straining at the leash, eager to get
back to his old joyous pursuits and increasingly intolerant of
restrictions.
"He refuses to listen to me or to his father," she confided to Nance, who
had coaxed her down to the yard for a breath of fresh air.
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