A hotelkeeper, Mrs. Haley, watches as a man in a fancy car and with only one leg enters her hotel by the beach. It is winter and so the hotel is empty and she offers him a room for the night. He introduces himself as Mr. Langston and takes a room on the second floor despite the fact that he has to walk with crutches. He stays in his room for the first day and Mr. Baker, a local man who owns a few cottages nearby, comes by and asks about the newcomer. Mrs. Haley says he will probably only stay for the night, but later Mr. Langston comes down and tells her he will be staying for a while. He also asks her to get him some alcohol, which she does begrudgingly. The housekeeper, Ceeley, brings him his food and tells Mrs. Haley that he is sitting in his room just drinking by himself. Mrs. Haley decides he shouldn't be drinking by himself and so she goes up to his room with a bottle of grapefruit juice and tells him to mix it with some Bacardi. He invites her to sit and drink with him and she tells him about her life, how she ran away from New York with her husband and lived happily with him and their children for a long time before he passed. Mr. Langston says he doesn’t believe in love that lasts that long and Mrs. Haley speculates that his troubles are because of a woman.  They begin to spend their days together, walking the beach and talking on his porch. He writes poems and Mrs. Haley thinks they are gloomy. He writes one about her standing on the beach thinking about all the creatures of the ocean, but she doesn’t quite get it. Mr. Baker begins to come over to try and convince Mr. Langston to buy a cottage, but Mr. Langston continuously gives him reasons why he can’t, causing Mrs. Haley to laugh. Mr. Langston especially takes to Mrs. Haley’s grandchildren who come to visit her sometimes. One day, however, a woman comes in a taxi and tells Mrs. Haley that she is Mr. Langston’s wife. She gets a room and Mrs. Haley hears them arguing and a couple days later the wife leaves. Mr. Langston falls back into drinking and Mrs. Haley questions him about it and he says that all the wife wants is money. Mrs. Haley is able to get Mr. Langston out of his stupor again by showing him the turtles that come to the beach to lay their eggs. They watch with wonder at the creatures, but are angry when some men come to hunt the turtles and eat them and their eggs. When they find the body of one turtle Mrs. Haley asks Mr. Langston to write a poem about it, which he says is no use. He then gets a letter from his wife asking for more money as well as another letter proving that his wife is cheating on him. He shows Mrs. Haley and she grows increasingly angry at the wife. One morning she sends Ceeley off to go fishing and she watches as Mr. Langston walks on the beach in his bathing suit. She is worried about him and calls out his name and sees that he ignores her calls. She runs out to him as he wades into the ocean with his crutches and she goes in after him trying to save him. She gets a hold of him and tells him that life is sweet, but he says it isn’t sweet for him. They are both washed ashore and she finds Mr. Langston dead. She runs to get Mr. Baker to help her and he says that they can’t let people know that Mr. Langston killed himself because it will lower the property value of Mr. Baker's cottages and the allure of the beach. She is distraught, but is glad that in his will Mr. Langston didn’t leave anything to his wife. She feels sad as she passes by the spot where he died after that, but one day when her granddaughter comes to visit, the young girl plays in the ocean and Mrs. Haley thinks of all the living things in the ocean and suddenly no longer feels sad.