"Damn you, sir!" he broke out fiercely. "What the devil do you mean
by keeping a black woman in your house, and sending your wife to
the hotel here?"
He was purple and furious; in his hand he crushed Mrs. Hamilton's
beautiful composition.
"She tells me you called in natives to throw her out of your
office: it's disgraceful! Upon my word it is; it's scandalous! And
you sent her to the hotel! I never heard of such a thing!"
"Mrs. Hamilton came out uninvited, in defiance of my express
wishes, and on her arrival I told her she could not stay with me,"
returned Hamilton quietly. "Whether she went to the hotel or not, I
don't know."
"But your wife, damn it all, your wife, has a right to stay with
you if she chooses; naturally she would come to you, and you can't
turn her out in this way."
"She has long ago forfeited all rights as my wife," replied
Hamilton calmly, in a low tone, with so much weight in it that the
Commissioner looked at him keenly.
"Why don't you get a divorce or a separation then?" he asked
abruptly. "Do the thing decently--not have her out like this, and
make a scandal all over the station."
"I know of no grounds for a divorce," returned Hamilton. "There are
many ways of breaking the marriage vows other than infidelity. I
married Mrs. Hamilton twenty years ago, and for those twenty years
she has practically refused to live with me.
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