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 bonâ 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 came to me, in a rather curious manner.
A cousin of mine, having been badly wounded in the West African War, was sent to a London hospital to have the bullet, which had puzzled all the local surgeons, located and extracted.