"Yeh, you do. You know nothin' but God could make a gal like your Ann Rutledge. And if God's not a blame fool he made her for something more than the little time she's spent in this here New Salem. I'm not promiscuous enough to tell it like the parson, but I'm tellin' you, Abry Linkhorn, that when I set by that grave and put my flower over the place where her hands was berried and said what I didn't never have words to say when she was here about thankin' her for remembering poor Ole Bar, I _know_ she heard it. She didn't say nothin', but I seen her smile and I know--I know--curse it, I can't tell what I know. But Ann Rutledge ain't blowed out like no candle. I know this. And I am glad. And I'm glad, too, Abry Linkhorn, that she wasn't none of my gal. If you'd seen John Rutledge standin' beside that grave you'd been glad she wasn't no flesh and blood of yourn. I never knew before that grizzle-tops like him, that's men, and not chipper-perkers, liked gals so well. He didn't make no noise like her mother did, but it's still water that runs deep and he'll have the heart-bleeds for many a changin' moon." "Poor Rutledge," Lincoln said brokenly. "I must go to see him." "Yep, and there's others you ought to go to see, and you can't get started none too quick. The whole kit and posse of 'em's' about to start searchin' fer you; Clary Grove to boot. Any reason why you should make your friends beat the bushes when walking's good and you ain't no cripple?" It was this appeal that turned the steps of Lincoln to the home of Dr. Allen as he and William Green yet sat discussing him. As Ole Bar and Abe Lincoln passed Rutledge Inn, the latter looked across the street. A light burned in the window of the room where Ann's little sewing-table had been. The tall man hesitated and moved on. CHAPTER XXXIV FOR THE THINGS THAT ARE TO BE While Dr. Allen and William Green were yet discussing the strange disappearance of Abe Lincoln, the door opened and he stood before them. They turned toward him and beheld what seemed a wreckage, wrought by hunger and longing, unrest and the sorrow of a loss which could never be made good. In his face were lines already too deeply cut for Time's erasure. No word was spoken. The two men seemed awed by the majesty of his silence and strangely moved by his dumb sorrow, and, strong men though they were, tears wet their cheeks. "Doc," Lincoln said, "how long will this last--for I cannot, cannot bear to think of--of----" His voice grew unsteady. He did not finish the sentence; instead he said, "Is there any honorable way I can finish it all?" "You do not want to finish it. You want to live your life." "I have lived my life." The voice seemed far away as if from some ancestral tomb. "I have lived my life. I found it here in New Salem--and I will leave it here." "No, no. You will feel differently after awhile. You will want to live for the things that are to be."