This Alan was determined to do whenever he should meet her . He did not go to the house with Emily but wandered about the shore , watching for Lynde and not seeing her . At length he went home , a prey to stormy emotions . He realized at last that he loved Lynde Oliver . He wondered how he could have been so long blind to it . He knew that he must have loved her ever since he had first seen her . The discovery amazed but did not shock him . There was no reason why he should not love her -- should not woo and win her for his wife if she cared for him . She was good and sweet and true . Anything of doubt in her antecedents could not touch her . Probably the world would look upon Captain Anthony as a somewhat undesirable father-in-law for a minister , but that aspect of the question did not disturb Alan . As for the trouble of the letter , he felt sure he would easily be able to clear it away . Probably some malicious busybody had become aware of his frequent calls at Four Winds and chose to interfere in his private affairs thus . For the first time it occurred to him that there had been a certain lack of cordiality among his people of late . If it were really so , doubtless this was the reason . At any other time this would have been of moment to him . But now his thoughts were too wholly taken up with Lynde and the estrangement on her part to attach much importance to anything else . What she thought mattered incalculably more to Alan than what all the people in Rexton put together thought . He had the right , like any other man , to woo the woman of his choice and he would certainly brook no outside interference in the matter . After a sleepless night he went back to Four Winds in the morning .
Lynde would not expect him XXXXX that time and he would have more chance of finding her .
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