"And yet, she touches my brother's face, and fails to discover any alteration in it."
I met that objection also—to my own satisfaction, though not to his.
"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.