"You talk about God," said Lincoln rather indifferently, "as if you were sure—well, I believe you are. I knew it the night I heard you singin' on the bluff. I have heard you sing that song many times since—sometimes in my dreams. I wish I could feel as you do when you sing your pilgrim song. I have imagined that I will some day, but now—now I think of my mother lyin' under a forgotten tangle where strange beasts creep. She was a pilgrim, too—but she passed out of it all weak and weary. Yet she believed just as you believe, as I have tried to believe."
"But, Abraham—you know we are here for just a little time. The song says, 'I can tarry—I can tarry but a night.' Sometimes the night is very short, as when a child passes on. Sometimes it is longer, as when an old, old man dies. But whether long or short, the night gives way to the morning with its light and fresh life and strength. I know it is so."
She had been speaking in a quiet voice with a touch of pleading, for she felt he was not paying close attention.
"How do you know it?" he asked, turning to her. "Tell me how you know it—or why you believe so strongly."
"Let us sit down," she said, "here where the light is fading on the river. See, only the foam shines now. But in just a little while the moon will put a thousand bars of silver on the water. We are not afraid of the dark—you and I—nor of each other. I want to tell you a story."
He was paying attention now. They sat down on the broad step of the mill door. To him Ann Rutledge had never been so close before, and yet just now so unattainable. Never before had she spoken to him in such childish simplicity, yet now she was mysteriously beyond his understanding.
"I have often doubted," he said, with something like a sigh as he stretched his legs across the platform and waited; "I should like to believe—as you do. Can you make me?"
"I will tell you a story," she said again. Her voice was low and sweet. It seemed in tune with the gathering darkness, the falling of the water, the evening calm and the burdened heart of the man.