They pointed out cold-bloodedly that the Faith Healer had
failed three times where he had succeeded once; and that, admitting the
successes, there was no proof that his religion was their cause. There
were such things as hypnotism and magnetism and will-power, and abnormal
mental stimulus on the part of the healed--to say nothing of the Healing
Springs.
Carefully laying their plans, they quietly spread the rumour that Ingles
had promised to restore to health old Mary Jewell, who had been bedridden
ten years, and had sent word and prayed to have him lay his hands upon
her--Catholic though she was. The Faith Healer, face to face with this
supreme and definite test, would have retreated from it but for Laura
Sloly. She expected him to do it, believed that he could, said that he
would, herself arranged the day and the hour, and sang so much exaltation
into him, that at last a spurious power seemed to possess him. He felt
that there had entered into him something that could be depended on, not
the mere flow of natural magnetism fed by an outdoor life and a
temperament of great emotional force, and chance, and suggestion--and
other things. If, at first, he had influenced Laura, some ill-controlled,
latent idealism in him, working on a latent poetry and spirituality in
her, somehow bringing her into nearer touch with her lost Playmates than
she had been in the long years that had passed; she, in turn, had made
his unrationalised brain reel; had caught him up into a higher air, on no
wings of his own; had added another lover to her company of lovers--and
the first impostor she had ever had.
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