“I think of him,” returned Saidie, quite simply, with a sort of proud pleasure that made the Englishwoman stare incredulously.

“Silly little fool!” she ejaculated, with a harsh, disdainful laugh.

“Does he give you all those things, and dress you up like that?” she added, staring at the pearls on Saidie’s neck.

“He has given me everything I have,” she replied, seriously.

That Hamilton was wasting his substance on another went home far more keenly to his lawful wife than that he was wasting his love on the same.  She got up, and went close to the girl, with a face of fury.

“They are all mine!  I should like to drag them off you!  Do you understand that an Englishman’s money belongs to his wife, and I am his wife?  You!  What are you?  He belongs to me, and, whatever you may think, I can take him from you.  By our laws he must come back to me.”

Saidie rose and faced the angry woman unmoved.

“No law on earth can make a man stay with a woman he does not love,” she said calmly, “nor take him from one he does.  You must know little, or you would know that love is stronger than all law.  I give you leave to withdraw.  Salaam.”

And she herself moved slowly backwards towards the hanging chick, passed through it, and was gone, leaving the Englishwoman alone in the room.

* * * * *

Three hours later Hamilton, sitting in his own private office, surrounded with papers, started suddenly as he heard a well-known and hated voice say, outside the door.

“Thanks, I’ll go in myself.”

The next minute the door had opened and his wife stood before him.  He sat in silence, regarding her.

“Well, Frank, I suppose you were expecting me?  You saw the boat came in, doubtless.  You don’t look particularly pleased to see me!”

There was only one chair in the room, and Hamilton remained seated.  His wife stood in front of him.

“I do not know of any reason why I should be pleased, do you?” he said calmly, gazing at her with eyes full of concentrated hostility.

“No, considering you’ve got that black woman up at your house, I don’t suppose you do want your wife back very badly; but I’ve come to stay, my dear fellow, some time, so you’ve got to make the best of it.”

“You will not stay with me,” returned Hamilton quietly.  His face was very white, his eyes had become black as they looked at her.  One hand played idly with a paper-knife on his table.

“And a nice scandal there’ll be when I go to stay at the hotel here, and it’s known I’m your wife, and you are living out in the desert with a woman from the bazaar!”

“The fear of scandal has long since ceased to regulate my life,” answered Hamilton calmly.  “Be good enough to make your interview short; I have a great deal of work to-day.”

“You are a devil!” replied the woman, white, too, now with impotent rage, “to desert your own wife for that filthy native woman.  I—­”