"Ann Rutledge!" Lincoln was bending over her and there was a tone in his voice that compelled her to look up. In the gloom his face had taken on a strange, white cast and something of the expression it had borne when Jack Armstrong had tried the unfair trick.
"Ann Rutledge," he whispered under his breath, "has John McNeil in any way wronged you? If he has—if he has—I—will choke the life out of him, and that without warnin'."
"Oh, Abraham!" she cried, "don't talk so. I don't know whether he has wronged me or not. That's what the secret's about—I don't know and I wish I could die right here in this cellar," and again she turned her face to the wall and sobbed.
Speechless, Abraham Lincoln looked down upon her. His face was pale, his teeth set—his great fists were clenched, yet what could he do?
The sobs of the girl beat against his heart, strongly fanning the pain and fierce passion.
"What shall I do—what shall I do?" she said brokenly.
"You shall go straight to your mother," he said firmly. "Tell her everything."
"But I promised—gave an honorable promise, a solemn promise that I would not tell."
"There can be no such thing as an honorable promise to the kind of a man who does not know the meanin' of the word. There can be no such thing as a sacred promise to a man who has no more conception of sacredness than a beast. The man who has brought you to this trouble, of whatever kind it may be, is unfit for consideration. Go to your mother. If you don't go I'll carry you there in my arms."