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Fifty Candles

“Please listen to me. What are you going to do? Where are you going? Home?”

“Home!” A bitter look came into her clear blue eyes. “I can’t go home.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t you understand? There were showers—showers for the bride-to-be. And I kissed everybody good-by and hurried away to be married. Can I go back—husbandless?”

“You don’t have to. I told you last night———”

“I know. In the moonlight, with the band on the boat deck playing a waltz. You said you loved me———”

“And I do.”

She shook her head.

“You pity me. And it seems like love to you. But pity—pity isn’t love.”

Confound the girl! This was her story, and she seemed determined to stick to it.

“Ah, yes,” said I scornfully. “What

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