But when he saw Stephen, Mr. Lincoln looked up with a smile of welcome that is still, and ever will be, remembered and cherished.

“Tell Judge Whipple that I have attended to that little matter, Steve,” he said.

“Why, Mr. Lincoln,” he exclaimed, “you have had no time.”

“I have taken the time,” Mr. Lincoln replied, “and I think that I am well repaid.  Steve,” said he, “unless I’m mightily mistaken, you know a little more than you did yesterday.”

“Yes, sir!  I do,” said Stephen.

“Come, Steve,” said Mr. Lincoln, “be honest.  Didn’t you feel sorry for me last night?”

Stephen flushed scarlet.

“I never shall again, sir,” he said.

The wonderful smile, so ready to come and go, flickered and went out.  In its stead on the strange face was ineffable sadness,—­the sadness of the world’s tragedies, of Stephen stoned, of Christ crucified.

“Pray God that you may feel sorry for me again,” he said.

Awed, the child on his lap was still.  The politician had left the room.  Mr. Lincoln had kept Stephen’s hand in his own.

“I have hopes of you, Stephen,” he said.  “Do not forget me.”

Stephen Brice never has.  Why was it that he walked to the station with a heavy heart?  It was a sense of the man he had left, who had been and was to be.  This Lincoln of the black loam, who built his neighbor’s cabin and hoed his neighbor’s corn, who had been storekeeper and postmaster and flat-boatman.  Who had followed a rough judge dealing a rough justice around a rough circuit; who had rolled a local bully in the dirt; rescued women from insult; tended the bedside of many a sick coward who feared the Judgment; told coarse stories on barrels by candlelight (but these are pure beside the vice of great cities); who addressed political mobs in the raw, swooping down from the stump and flinging embroilers east and west.  This physician who was one day to tend the sickbed of the Nation in her agony; whose large hand was to be on her feeble pulse, and whose knowledge almost divine was to perform the miracle of her healing.  So was it that, the Physician Himself performed His cures, and when work was done, died a martyr.

Abraham Lincoln died in His name

CHAPTER VI

It was nearly noon when Stephen walked into the office the next day, dusty and travel-worn and perspiring.  He had come straight from the ferry, without going home.  And he had visions of a quiet dinner with Richter under the trees at the beer-garden, where he could talk about Abraham Lincoln.  Had Richter ever heard of Lincoln?

But the young German met him at the top of the stair—­and his face was more serious than usual, although he showed his magnificent teeth in a smile of welcome.

“You are a little behind your time, my friend,” said he, “What has happened you?”

“Didn’t the Judge get Mr, Lincoln’s message?” asked Stephen, with anxiety.