“That’s what I said,” returned her sister with dry grimness. “She’s made me two offers to leave my husband, wants me to get out and, after I’ve gone for a year, ask him to bring suit for desertion.”
“My Lord!” murmured Hannah in a hushed voice of horror.
“Well, that beats anything I’ve ever heard!” exclaimed Hazel. “That beats the ball, and not speaking to you, and all the rest. It’s the worst yet! What’s made her do it? What’s the matter with her?”
“The same thing that’s always been the matter with her—she doesn’t like me, she wants to get rid of me. She tried to freeze me out first by not speaking to me, and leaving us to scramble along the best way we could on Dominick’s salary. Now, she’s seen that that won’t work, and she’s gone off on a new tack. She’s a woman of resources. If she finds the way blocked in one direction, she tries another.”
“She’s actually offered you money to leave Dominick?” asked Hannah. “Said she’d give it to you if you’d desert him and let him get a divorce?”
“That’s it,” returned her sister, in the same hard tone, tapping with her finger-tips on the arms of the chair. “That’s the flattering offer she’s made me twice now.”
“How much did she offer you?” said Hazel.
This was a crucial question. Berny knew its importance and sat up, pushing back her disarranged hat.
“One hundred thousand dollars,” she said calmly.
There was a second pause which seemed charged with astonishment, as with electrical forces. The sisters, their hands fallen in their laps, fastened their eyes on the speaker in a stare of glassy amaze.