But Hamilton had sprung to his feet; his face was blazing; he seized his wife’s wrists in both hands.

“Be quiet,” he said, in a low tone of such fury that she cowered beneath it.  “One word more and I shall kill you; do you understand?”

Then he raised one hand and brought it down on his gong.  Instantly two stalwart, bronze giants, his chuprassis, entered the room and stood by the door.

“Take this woman out, and keep her out,” he said to them.  “Never let her in again.  She annoys me.”

The chuprassis put their hands to their foreheads, and then impassively approached the Englishwoman.  She looked at her husband wildly as they took her arms.

“Frank! you will not surely—­” she expostulated.  “Your own wife!” and she struggled to release her arms.

Hamilton waved his hand, and the natives forced her to the door.  For a moment she seemed inclined to scream and struggle.  Then her face changed.  A look of intense malevolence came over it.  She walked between the men quietly to the door.  As she passed through it, she looked back.

“You and she shall regret this,” she said.  Then the door shut, and Hamilton was alone.

He sat down, collapsed in his chair.  Oh, how could he free himself from this millstone at his neck?  What relief could he gain anywhere?  To what power appeal?  He could keep her out of his house, out of his office, but not out of his life.  She had come here with the deliberate intention of wrecking that, and she would succeed probably, for she would have the blind, hideous force of conventional morality on her side.  She would destroy his life—­that life till lately so valueless to him; that dreary stretch made barren so many years by her hateful influence, but which, in spite of it, at Saidie’s touch, had now bloomed into a garden of flowers.  The thought of Saidie strengthened him.  It was true that his wife would probably succeed in breaking up his life here from the conventional and social point of view, and he would be obliged most likely to give up his appointment; but he had a small independent income, and on that he and Saidie could still live together.  They would go to Ceylon or to Malabar.  Perhaps also he could make money otherwise than officially.  Wherever he went his wife would probably pursue him, intent on making his life a misery.  Still, Fortune might favour him; he and Saidie might in time reach some corner of the world where their remorseless tracker would lose trace of them.  Perhaps to go to England at once and obtain a legal separation would be the best plan, but then it was winter in England now, and he could not with advantage take Saidie to England in winter, for fear his exotic Eastern flower would fade in the northern winds.

His thoughts wandered from point to point, and the minutes passed unheeded.  His papers lay untouched, scattered on the floor.  The chuprassi brought in from time to time a note, laid it on the table and withdrew.  Hamilton noticed nothing; he sat still, thinking.