He knew it was Helen whom he had carried through the rain, for he heard her mother speak her name. He had not seen her face, but the way her arms had clung around his neck, as if afraid he would let her fall, and the pressure of her hand on his as he put her down, had been like an electric shock which he still felt, calling himself a fool many times to be upset by the touch of a hand and the clasp of a girl’s arms around his neck. It was a new experience for him, as he had never paid much attention to the ladies. No one who saw him ever suspected the morbid vein in his nature which made him dwell secretly upon a past in which he had no part and with which few ever connected him. He had felt it to an unusual degree that afternoon when he stood by ’Tina’s grave, the shadow of which was always with him when his laugh was the lightest and his manner the proudest. He couldn’t forget it, and fancied that other people remembered it, as he did. To the guests at the hotel he was polite and kind and attentive, but never familiar with them, especially if they were ladies, who were sure to hear the story and gossip about it. He had thought a good deal about the Tracys, who represented a different class from those who usually frequented the hotel. They were the extreme fashionables, who would probably think of him as a kind of servant to do their bidding. His attention to them in the rain was what he would have given to any ladies, and he was not prepared for the way in which Helen had received it. She certainly had pressed his hand and clasped his neck as her mother had not done, and she was just as conscious of the act as he was. This he did not know. It was an accident, he believed, and she would never give him another thought, while he should subside into his place as the hotel clerk and watch and admire her at a distance. This was his decision as he left Craig and went to speak to a gentleman who had come from the train and was inquiring the way to a farmhouse among the hills of West Ridgefield. Left to himself Craig looked at his watch and then picked up Browning, which he usually had with him. He had joined a Browning club in Boston, partly because it was the thing to do, and partly because he really liked the poet and enjoyed trying to find out what he meant, if anything. He had taken up the Story of Sordello for his summer work, resolved to make himself master of its obscurities and astonish the club in the autumn with his knowledge. But reading Sordello alone, with no one to suggest or disagree, was uphill business, and he had only accomplished the first book. This he had read three times and was debating whether to give it a fourth trial, or to attack Book second, when he heard the sound of a footstep and a young girl came round the corner singing softly, “Oh the glorious summer morning With its dewy grass and flowers,”