His voice was husky with emotion as he said: "Mother, I don't understand that. You've got to tell me how that is done."
She felt the desperate resolution in his voice and she solemnly answered, "My son, I don't know how it is done."
"But you must know! Who moves that pencil! Your hand quivered all the time."
"Yes, I seem to have some physical connection with it—at times. Other times all that takes place has no more connection with me than the sunlight on the floor. The world is a very mysterious place to me, Victor. I don't pretend to know anything. I do as I am told."
He fell silent again while his mind reviewed the entire process. Then he burst out, vehemently, on a new line. "I can't believe my eyes. You've hypnotized me. Mother, for God's sake don't juggle with me—don't play tricks with me. I won't stand for it. It hurts me—" He paused, confused, baffled, ready to weep.
"Can you, my own son, accuse me of trickery?" she asked.
"You think you're honest, mother—but don't you see you've become an unconscious hypnotist? It's your subconscious self deceiving us both. I don't know how you do it, but I know it must be a fraud."
"Victor," she said, solemnly, "what this power is you shall have full opportunity to determine, but I say to you that for more than twenty years I've been guided by these unseen presences. I've tested their wisdom and lived under their care. So far as this message is concerned I accept it. I was confused and frightened yesterday, but this morning I am calm. I shall do as they bid. I shall stay here while you go down into the city and see what you can find to do, and together we will test these voices."
There was a ring of new-found decision in her tone that quite dashed him. He sat dumbly facing her, helpless in a whirl of mental storm. "Is she more cunning than I thought? Is she playing a more complex game than appears?" These thoughts vaguely shaped themselves. Then his filial self answered: "But what has she to gain? She loves me. She has sacrificed herself to keep me at school—why should she deceive me?"
Here again a third conception came to embitter him. He spoke. "You don't seem to mind my loss of a degree?"