A great sign came from Lincoln, and Stanton thought that he had never seen on mortal countenance such infinite sadness.
"Ambition!" he said.

"How dare we talk of ambition, when this is the end of it?
All these people--decent people, kind people, once full of joy and purpose, and now all forgotten! It is not the buried bodies I mind, it is the buried hearts....I wonder if it means peace...." He stood there with head bowed and he seemed to be speaking to himself.
Stanton caught a phrase or two and found it was verse--banal verses, which were there and then fixed in his fly-paper memory.

"Tell me, my secret soul," it ran: "Oh, tell me, Hope and Faith, Is there no resting-place From sorrow, sin, and death?
Is there no happy spot Where mortals may be blessed, Where grief may find a balm And weariness a rest ?" The figure murmuring these lines seemed to be oblivious of his companion.

He stood gazing under the moon, like a gaunt statue of melancholy.

Stanton spoke to him but got no answer, and presently took his own road home.