“Mail on a Sunday?” Sam asked.

Waddell smiled and ambled back to his desk. He sat on the edge of it puffing his cheroot. He looked well rested but pale. Framed by his silver hair and goatee, his face seemed positively translucent. Now comes the pitch, Sam thought. That must be why Clawson was so upset—Sam was about to be included in the inner circle. J. Allan Taylor was Clawson’s man, and now that the dust had settled, J. Allan Taylor wasn’t mayor of anything. It had been like watching a chaotic game of billiards, in which a dozen men were all shooting at once on the same table. All the vectors had converged, intersected, and deflected, and now it was clear which balls were in whose pockets.

Whatever happened now, Sam had a clear conscience. He had, for once, done the right thing. And still come out ahead. Waddell wasn’t perfect, but he had saved those men at the jail from lynching. Not like the soldiers running amok in Brooklyn. Sam could work for the man, honorably.

“As you can see,” Waddell said to the windows, “events have borne out my predictions.”

“They sure have.”

“It’s all turned out better than I dared hope.”

Sam thought briefly of Dan Wright peddling for his life in deep sand, the crack of the rifle shots. Then he put the image out of his mind. What was done was done—it couldn’t be fixed now. Best get on with the future.

The library door clicked open and in glided Gabrielle deRosset Waddell, lovely in a gray woolen dress that looked almost military. From collar to waist, a line of red buttons ran between stripes of black velvet. Her dark hair floated in black combs, swept up from her neck and ears, which were rose-pale. She nodded a greeting and held out a handful of envelopes, all of which had already been knifed open.

Waddell set his cheroot on the ashtray and clapped his hands like a happy child. “This place has turned into a branch office of Western Union and the United States Postal Service. Miz Gabby, read some of them.”

Without enthusiasm, Gabrielle slipped a letter out of the envelope on top. “ ‘My dear Colonel—Just a few lines to congratulate you on your courage, and the people of Wilmington on their nerve.’ ”

“When a public man acts,” Waddell said, rubbing his hands and then taking up his cheroot again, “other men take notice. Keep reading, Miz Gabby.”

Gabrielle glanced at Sam and chose another letter. He suddenly understood that she had read all these letters out loud before, perhaps many times. “ ‘I beg to congratulate you on the struggle in dear old North Carolina—’ ”

“You see, Sam,” Waddell said, as Gabrielle kept reading in a monotone, “we have made history here. We have seized the moment.”