Summary

In chapter 19, Isabelle and Robert marry. Isabelle carries out the plan she’s been concocting for weeks. Nell has helped her prepare by getting ready Isabelle’s dresses and other essentials for leaving home. Isabelle sneaks away from home on a Saturday. As she’s carrying out her plan she thinks of the previous Monday when she and Robert met at the Hamilton County Courthouse to purchase their marriage license. The clerk is worried for them, but issues the license nonetheless.

On the Saturday, Isabelle and Robert attempt first to marry at a church where the pastor refuses to marry them, since they are an interracial couple. Though the pastor is gruff at first, he offers St. Paul’s African Methodist Episcopal Church as a place that might marry Isabelle and Robert with no problem.

At St. Paul’s, Isabelle and Robert meet...