I checked the new outbreak by putting some necessary questions. The few facts which I succeeded in eliciting did not present my coming interview with the husband in an encouraging light.
After moving into the new house, Parley had found some difficulty (naturally enough) in reconciling himself to the change in his life. From time to time (as his wife had suggested) he looked in at the police office, and had offered the benefit of his experience to his colleagues when they were in need of advice. For a while these visits to the city produced the good results which had been anticipated. Then followed the very complete and very suspicious change in him, already related to me. While the husband and wife still occupied the same room at night, Mrs Parley discovered that Benjamin was disturbed by dreams. For the first time in all her experience, she heard him talking in his sleep. Here and there, words escaped him which seemed to allude to a woman -- a woman whom he called 'my dear' -- a woman who had apparently placed some agitating confidence in him. Sensible enough under other circumstances, Mrs Parley's jealousy had hurried her into an act of folly. She woke her husband and insisted on an explanation. The result had been the institution of separate bedrooms -- on the pretence that Parley's sense of conjugal duty would not permit him to be the means of disturbing his wife's rest. Arriving, correctly enough, at the conclusion that he was afraid of betraying himself, Mrs Parley had tried the desperate experiment of following him privately when he next left the house. A police-officer of forty years' experience, with a secret to keep, sees before him and behind him, and on his right hand and his left, at one and the same time. Poor Mrs Parley, discovered as a spy, felt the look that her husband gave her (to use her own expression) 'in the marrow of her bones.' His language had been equally alarming. 'Try it again,' he said, 'and you will have seen the last of me.' She had naturally been afraid to try it again; and there she was, at my breakfast table, with but one hope left -- the hope that the Sheriff would assist her!
III Such was my interview with the wife. My interview with the husband produced one result, for which I was in some degree prepared. It satisfied me that any interference on my part would be worse than useless.
I had certain claims on Parley's gratitude and respect, which he had hitherto recognised with heartfelt sincerity. When we now stood face to face -- before a word had passed between us -- I saw one ting clearly: my hold over him was lost.
For Mrs Parley's sake I could not allow myself to be discouraged at the outset.
'Your wife was with me yesterday,' I said, 'in great distress.'
His voice told me that he had suffered -- and was still suffering -- keenly. I also noticed that the lines marked by age in his face had deepened. He evidently felt that he stood before me a man self-degraded in his old age. On the other hand, it was just as plain that he was determined to deceive me if I attempted to penetrate his secret.
My one chance of producing the right impression was to appeal to his sense of self-respect, if any such sense was still left in him.
'Don't suppose that I presume to interfere between you and your wife,' I resumed. 'In what little I have now to say to you, I shall bear in mind the high character that you have always maintained, not only among your own friends, but among persons like myself, who are placed above you by the accidents of birth and position.'
'You are very good, sir. I assure you I feel --'
He paused. I waited to let him go on. His eyes dropped before mine. He seemed to be afraid to follow the good impulse that I had roused in him. I tried again.
'Without repeating what Mrs Parley has said to me,' I proceeded, 'I may tell you at what conclusion I have myself arrived. It is only doing you justice to suppose that your wife has been mislaid by false appearances. Will you go back to her, and satisfy that she has been mistaken?'
'She wouldn't believe me, sir.'
'Will you at least, try the experiment?'
He shook his head doggedly. 'Quite useless,' he answered. 'My wife's temper --'
I stopped him there.
'Make some allowance for your wife's temper,' I said, 'and don't forget that you owe some consideration to your daughters. Spare them the shame and distress of seeing their father and mother at enmity.'
His manner changed: I had said something which appeared to give him confidence.
'Did my wife say anything to you about our girls?' he asked.
'Yes.'
'What did she say?'
'She thought you neglectful of your daughters.'
'Anything else, sir?'
'She said you had, at one time, acknowledged that the girls ought to have a good governess; but she now finds you indifferent to the best interests of your children.'
He lifted one of his hands, with a theatrical exaggeration of gesture, quite new in my experience of him.
'She said that, did she? Now, Mr Sheriff, judge for yourself what my wife's complaints of me are worth! I have this day engaged a governess for my children.'
I looked at him.