At the wooden causeway, they looked out on low, marshy islands cut by finger channels. Beyond those lay the ocean. They crossed the causeway, overwhelmed by the soft breeze, the plovers and wheeling gulls. It was exactly what Gray Ellen needed today—to ride, to feel the air moving against her cheeks, to get away from the noise of other people. She didn’t like living in a hotel, even a residential hotel. She wanted a little house on a quiet street, with a grocery on the corner and neighbors who sat on their porches in the evening trading stories about the day. She wanted a clean sky drifting over her backyard, and chips of starlight flickering on the leaves of her own spreading oak in the evening.

They left the buggy in the shade of the Oceanview Hotel and wandered along the wide, clean beach. The long green swells rolled ashore, dramatically serene. Holding his hand, she felt very much in love with her husband. The wind mussed his hair and burned color into his cheeks. He looked ruggedly handsome.

She stared into the wide-open sky, the long horizon in every direction, feeling a weight lifted from her spirit. She breathed in the air deeply.

Other couples roamed the beach, hand in hand. She felt a sense of release she had longed for ever since Chicago—the world seemed to open up, to promise everything.

She was slightly ashamed of herself for having already judged this place so harshly. “Lovely,” she whispered, and Sam only nodded, threading his fingers into hers.

Then she unlaced her high shoes, kicked them off, gathered her skirts, and ran barefoot through the surf.

“What are you doing?” Sam laughed, then kicked off his own shoes and followed her into the ocean till the water foamed around his knees.

Afterward, they ate cold shrimp at a shack that catered to excursionists, then rode back to town in the dusk. The Shell Road had gone slate-colored in the evening shadows. The moon was up, and the horse had no trouble keeping to the level track at a slow but steady pace. On either side, the pinewoods seemed to press closer, filling their ears with a racket of bullfrogs and crickets, cicadas and owls. Once, a possum skittered across the road, her belly pouch fat with kits.

They came into the lights at Seventeenth Street and heard a commotion of shouting voices several blocks later. A gang of men and boys was running down Seventh, across their path. Sam reined up the horse, and they watched the mob stream by. Red-shirted men on horseback rode the fringes of the mob, shouting and brandishing rifles.

“Lord,” Gray Ellen said, raising her hands to her mouth. If only they could have stayed at the shore a little while longer.

“The Record’s down that way, three blocks or so,” Sam said.

“We must do something!”