“He is certainly getting better,” the nurse agreed. “He has seemed like another boy since Sunday. How did you work such magic, Miss Haven?”
Laura looked at Jim and his eyes met hers steadily. “Hasn’t he told you?” she asked the nurse.
“He has told me nothing.”
Laura smiled at him as she explained, “Jim is my boy now—we agreed on that, Sunday. When he leaves the hospital he is coming to me.”
“Jim, I congratulate you. You are a lucky boy,” said the nurse, who knew all about Judge Haven and his daughter.
“I think I too am to be congratulated,” said Laura quickly, and the nurse nodded.
“Yes, Jim is a good boy,” she answered. Then she went away and left the two together. This time Jim did not talk very much. It was enough for him to have his pretty lady where he could look at her, and be sure it was not all a dream.
Not many days later, after a telephone conference with the nurse, Laura went to the hospital again. She found the boy lying there with a look of patient endurance in his eyes, but they widened with half-incredulous joy when she told him that she had come to take him away.
“Not—not now!” he cried out, with a little break in his voice.
“Yes, now—just as you are. We are going to wrap you in a blanket and put you into a carriage, and before you have time to get tired we shall be home.”