Well, it seemed rather late to think of that. Still, it showed a nice spirit, and I liked the way she spoke of him. She really was a lady, in her way, and—poor thing!—she did look the picture of misery. I am a tender-hearted woman, and I could not but feel a pang of pity for her.
"Ah, my dear," I said, "there's no question of marrying or not now! He is going fast, and nothing matters any more."
Then I kissed her—I kissed her affectionately—and bade her lie down, and not trouble about Lily's lessons; and I told her that whenever there was a change in Harry's condition I would let her know.
The change came a few days later—not suddenly, but creeping inch by inch; and it was not the change we had all anticipated. My splendid boy! Just as he had struggled and triumphed at football and cricket, so his magnificent strength fought with and overcame the poison in his blood before it could deposit itself in vital organs. It was marvellous. The very doctors, accustomed to miracles, could not believe their senses when they counted his pulse and looked at the little thermometer, and felt the places where the sore lumps had been. For weeks, I may say, we seemed to hold our breath in the maddening suspense, tantalised and intoxicated with a hope we dared not call a certainty; but at last we knew that life had conquered death, and that I was not called upon to undergo this agony of motherhood a second time. Of course he was weaker than a new-born baby—a mere shadow of himself; but he was saved. When they told me, I fell on my knees, just where I stood, and cried in my wild rapture and thankfulness, "Oh, God! God! What can I do—what uttermost service or sacrifice can I offer—for all Thy goodness to me?"
They looked at me in an odd way. They all looked at me, even my boy with his hollow eyes. And Tom said, "Come here, Polly, I want to speak to you;" and took me into our room, and laid his hand on my shoulders. He stood six feet in his socks, and weighed sixteen stone, but he trembled like a child.
"Old girl," he said, "you'll have to let him have her."
"Oh," I replied, "if he wants the moon, give it to him! I don't care."
It was a figurative way of expressing my mood of joy—my longing to compensate him utterly for what he had gone through; and I don't think I ought to have been taken so literally. But, before the words were well out of my mouth, Tom made off to Harry's room, and there and then informed him that "mother had given her consent."
And he did not tell me he was going to catch me up in this way. When next I went to my boy's bedside, and he murmured, "Good old mummy!" and remarked, with that deep thrill in his voice, that it was worth while getting well, I thought he meant that it was worth while getting well to see us all so happy.
"Ay," I said, from my heart, "if you hadn't got well, it's little that would have been worth while to me any more."