Turns out John Hay, Lincoln's secretary, had a thing for Kate Chase,
belle of Washington society and daughter of lumpen humorless Treasury
Secretary and 10-thousand-dollar-bill face Salmon P. Chase. While Kate
eventually opted to accept the matrimonial suit of noted drunkard and
reprobate William Sprague, to her everlasting chagrin, Hay still held a
torch for her. Later, after her divorce, Hay visited the rooms of her
ramshackle suburban apartments where Kate lived in poverty with her
retarded daughter.

"Hay," said Kate, the weariness of long years of suffering in her face,
the cracked and lined lips drooping pitifully as she began to weep.
They'd seen so much, they two -- Kate, the beatings and whisperings of
scandal and the ignominy of obscurity; Hay, increasing acclaim as an
ambassador and foreign diplomat that would culminate, at the century's
turn, with the Secretary of State-ship -- to each other, though, they
were still the youthful, strapping lad running thither and yon to
execute Lincoln's directives, and the long-necked, whippet-thin society
babe who inspired everyone she met to raptures of acclaim over her
encyclopedic knowledge and immaculate comportment.

Hay pressed a wad of folded banknotes into Kate's trembling, chapped
fingers. Her dark eyes flashed, momentarily, the old fire, before her
head drooped imperceptibly and a faint, wry awareness of her diminished
station in life, and her acknowledgement thereof, passed her features.