Anne had even grown to like Mrs. Welles and look for her coming. With quiet cheerfulness she often led James Mitchell away from the realization of his heavy canes and numbed feet back into the only world he had ever known. Deep within him, the hope lingered that he would again be able to go to the office, make endless rows of figures and be commended for his faithfulness: that he would draw his salary, place his small bets, make his luckless snatches at fortune, become again "the head of the house." Without deliberately deceiving him, Mrs. Welles deepened this faith, so that, after a visit from her he was actually stronger and once managed, unaided except for his canes, to stumble across the room.
Anne felt her always standing beside the sick man, throwing the thread of her faith about him, trying to draw him back to health. When she did not come for a few days, James fretted.
"I really believe you do him good," Anne said to her at the end of an afternoon in which Charlotte had kept him cheerful for hours.
"Faith will move mountains. You can never tell." It was the first direct reference she had made to her belief since the night of Anne's rudeness. But now, the assurance did not anger Anne. She was too weary.
"Faith in what?"
"Faith—in the power of faith. Just believing."
"Believing that you will get what you want just because you want it?"
"Not exactly. Believing in the harmony of Life, knowing that what you must have, what your soul needs, must come."
"How do you know what your soul needs?"
The other paused, thoughtful. "By listening," she said at last. "By escaping from the noise of material life. Material life is not Real."