. Add and multiply the lives it
has wrecked, the wars brought about. Menelaus, King of the Greeks,
doubtless received one regarding Helen's fancy for that simpering son
of Priam, Paris. The anonymous letter was in force even in that remote
period, the age of myths. It is consistent, for nearly all anonymous
letters are myths. A wife stays out late; her actions may be quite
harmless, only indiscreet. There is, alack! always some intimate
friend who sees, who dabbles her pen in the ink-well and labors over a
backhand stroke. It is her bounden duty to inform the husband
forthwith. The letter may wreck two lives, but what is this beside
stern, implacable duty? When man writes an anonymous letter he is in
want of money; when woman writes one she is in want of a sensation. It
is easy to reject a demand for money, but we accept the lie and wrap
it to our bosoms, so quick are we to believe ill of those we love.
This is an aspect of human nature that eludes analysis, as quicksilver
eludes the pressure of the finger. The anonymous letter breeds
suspicion; suspicion begets tragedy. The greatest tragedy is not that
which kills, but that which prolongs mental agony. Honest men and
women, so we are told, pay no attention to anonymous letters. They
toss them into the waste-basket ... and brood over them in silence.

Now, Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene was always considering her duty; her duty
to the church, to society, to charity, and, upon occasions, to her
lord and master.

"Bennington's men have gone out, the fools!" said Haldene from over
the top of his paper.

"Have they?" Mrs. Franklyn-Haldene nibbled the tip of her pen. She
sighed, tore up what she had written and filtered it through her
fingers into the waste-basket.

"Yes, they've gone out. I don't know what the business world is coming
to. Why, the brick-layer gets--I don't say earns--more than the
average clerk. And Bennington's men go out simply because he refuses
to discharge that young English inventor. ... What are you writing and
tearing up so often?" he asked, his curiosity suddenly aroused.

"A letter."

"Thoughts clogged?"

"It is a difficult letter to write."

"Then there can't be any gossip in it."

"I never concern myself with gossip, Franklyn. I wish I could make you
understand that."

"I wish you could, too." He laid his paper down. "Well, I'm off to the
club, unless you are particularly in need of me."

"You are always going to the club."

"Or coming b