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THE FIFTH STRING

not be robbed of its terror!" and with bowed head he went forth into the twilight.

She ran to the window and watched his retreating figure as he vanished. "Uncle Sanders was right; he loves another woman, and that string binds them together. He belongs to her!" Long and silently she stood by the window, gazing at the shadowing curtain of the coming night. At last her face softened. "Perhaps he does not love her now, but fears her vengeance. No, no; he is not a coward! I should have approached him differently; he is proud, and maybe he resented my imperative manner," and a thousand reasons why he should or should not have removed that string flashed through her mind.

"I will go early to the concert to-night and see him before he plays. Uncle Sanders said he did not touch that

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