"I am far from sure that she might not have made the discovery," I said,
"if she had touched him for the first time, since the discoloration of
his face. But she examines him now with a settled impression in her mind,
derived from previous experience of what she has felt in touching his
skin. Allow for the modifying influence of that impression on her sense
of touch--and remember at the same time, that it is the color and not the
texture of the skin that is changed--and his escape from discovery
becomes, to my mind, intelligible."
He shook his head; he owned he could not dispute my view. But he was not
content for all that.
"Have you made any inquiries," he asked, "about the period of her infancy
before she was blind? She may be still feeling, indirectly and
unconsciously, the effect of some shock to her nervous system in the time
when she could see."
"I have never thought of making inquiries."
"Is there anybody within our reach, who was familiarly associated with
her in the first year of her life? It is hardly likely, I am afraid, at
this distance of time?"
"There is a person now in the house," I said. "Her old nurse is still
living."
"Send for her directly."
Zillah appeared. After first explaining what he wanted with her, Nugent
went straight to the inquiry which he had in view.
"Was your young lady ever frightened when she was a baby by any dark
person, or any dark thing, suddenly appearing before her?"
"Never, sir! I took good care to let nothing come near her that could
frighten her--so long, poor little thing, as she could see."
"Are you quite sure you can depend on your memory?"
"Quite sure, sir--when it's a long time ago."
Zillah was dismissed. Nugent--thus far, unusually grave, and unusually
anxious--turned to me with an air of relief.
"When you proposed to me to join you in forcing Oscar to speak out," he
said, "I was not quite easy in my mind about the consequences. After what
I have just heard, my fear is removed."
"What fear?" I asked.
"The fear of Oscar's confession producing an estrangement between them
which might delay the marriage. I am against all delays. I am especially
anxious that Oscar's marriage should not be put off. When we began our
conversation, I own to you I was of Oscar's opinion that he would do
wisely to let marriage make him sure of his position in her affections,
before he risked the disclosure. Now--after what the nurse has told us--I
see no risk worth considering."
"In short," I said, "you agree with me?"
"I agree with you--though I _am_ the most opinionated man living. The
chances now seem to me to be all in Oscar's favor, Lucilla's antipathy is
not what I feared it was--an antipathy firmly rooted in a constitutional
malady. It is nothing more serious," said Nugent, deciding the question,
at once and for ever, with the air of a man profoundly versed in
physiology--"it is nothing more serious than a fanciful growth, a morbid
accident, of her blindness. She may live to get over it--she would, I
believe, certainly get over it, if she could see. In two words, after
what I have found out this morning, I say as you say--Oscar is making a
mountain out of a molehill. He ought to have put himself right with
Lucilla long since. I have unbounded influence over him. It shall back
your influence. Oscar shall make a clean breast of it, before the week is
out."
We shook hands on that bargain. As I looked at him--bright and dashing
and resolute; Oscar, as I had always wished Oscar to be--I own to my
shame I privately regretted that we had not met Nugent in the twilight,
on that evening of ours which had opened to Lucilla the gates of a new
life.
Having said to each other all that we had to say--our two lovers being
away together at the time, for a walk on the hills--we separated, as I
then supposed, for the rest of the day. Nugent went to the inn, to look
at a stable which he proposed converting into a studio: no room at
Browndown being half large enough, for the first prodigious picture with
which the "Grand Consoler" in Art proposed to astonish the world. As for
me, having nothing particular to do, I went out to see if I could meet
Oscar and Lucilla on their return from their walk.
Failing to find them, I strolled back by way of Browndown. Nugent was
sitting alone on the low wall in front of the house, smoking a cigar. He
rose and came to meet me, with his finger placed mysteriously on his
lips.
"You mustn't come in," he said; "you mustn't speak loud enough to be
heard." He pointed round the corner of the house to the little room at
the side, already familiar to you in these pages. "Oscar and Lucilla are
shut up together there. And Oscar is making his confession to her at this
moment!"