ell
her boy."

This message gave me a hard problem to solve: "What should I do with
it?"

On the one hand, my having agreed to take the message, tacitly bound me
to let him have it.

On the other hand, there were various questions to consider. In the
first place, Mr Blake-Mason might probably, and very naturally, resent
my writing to him on the subject, especially as I had no reason to
suppose he had any knowledge of psychic matters.

Secondly, he might suppose (quite untruly) that I had heard some private
affairs of his discussed, and had taken upon myself to convey a personal
warning, under cover of his dead mother's wishes.

This was perhaps exaggerating a possibility, which, nevertheless, could
not be ignored.

Thirdly, he might consider me a harmless lunatic, conveying a message
which had no slightest foundation in truth.

Fourthly, it might, on the other hand, give him the impression that
his mother must have some access to his most private affairs; in which
case he might become intensely interested in psychic matters, to the
exclusion of more mundane affairs--always a danger with young
people--not to mention other possibilities of psychic disaster for
_inexperienced investigators_.

I went over all these chances _con_, to put against the one _pro_ of his
mother's loving anxiety, and my sense of responsibility to her.

Finally, I decided that there was no choice left for me but to send the
message, and trust the consequences to a Higher Wisdom.

I did this, adding a few words of explanation, and also of warning, in
case he should recognise my absolute _bona fides_ and his mother's
personality, and become too much absorbed by these psychic
possibilities. Unfortunately, I added, in his own interests, _that it
was not necessary to acknowledge the letter._

"It would doubtless reach him, and I had nothing more to do with the
matter."

I left Oxford next day, and have never seen the young man since; nor
have I ever heard from him. I concluded that he was annoyed, or that the
message was quite wide of the mark. I never doubted his mother's
presence with me, but I might have failed to reproduce her words to her
son with sufficient accuracy for recognition.

Anyway, I put the matter out of my head as one of those trying episodes
to which all sensitives are exposed at times, when they think more of
conscience than personal convenience.

Three or four years passed before the corroboration of that message