“He wishes to bribe me—Charley’s bride of a week—to consent to a divorce.”
“The mean old tyrant! He ought to be hung!” ejaculated the woman, as her eyes devoured the curt note. She handed it back, and asked:
“What shall you say to this insult, dearie?”
“Only give me a pen and I will show you!” cried Berenice, her eyes flashing through their bitter tears. She seized it and wrote, in a nervous, trembling hand, across the back of the senator’s sheet:
“Those whom God has joined together, let not man put asunder!”
To these words the bride wrote her full name, in a large, aggressive hand:
“Berenice Vining Bonair.”
“I guess that will settle him for good!” laughed Mrs. Cline, as she handed Berry a fresh envelope to address to Senator Bonair.
This done, she carried the letter quickly to the waiting messenger, saying, with a proud toss of the head:
“There’s a letter for your master, and much good may it do him! There’s some folks whose principles he can’t buy with his yellow gold!”