`` Too sure , '' said Alan 's white lips . * * * * * The autumn dragged away . Alan found out how much a man may suffer and yet go on living and working . As for that , his work was all that made life possible for him now and he flung himself into it with feverish energy , growing so thin and hollow-eyed over it that even Elder Trewin remonstrated and suggested a vacation -- a suggestion at which Alan merely smiled . A vacation which would take him away from Lynde 's neighbourhood -- the thought was not to be entertained . He never saw Lynde , for he never went to any part of the shore now ; yet he hungered constantly for the sight of her , the sound of her voice , the glance of her luminous eyes . When he pictured her eating her heart out in the solitude of Four Winds , he clenched his hands in despair . As for the possibility of Harmon 's return , Alan could never face it for a moment . When it thrust its ugly presence into his thoughts , he put it away desperately . The man was dead -- or his fickle fancy had veered elsewhere . Nothing else could explain his absence . But they could never know , and the uncertainty would forever stand between him and Lynde like a spectre . But he thought more of Lynde 's pain than his own . He would have elected to bear any suffering if by so doing he could have freed her from the nightmare dread of Harmon 's returning to claim her . That dread had always hung over her and now it must be intensified to agony by her love for another man . And he could do nothing -- nothing . He groaned aloud in his helplessness . One evening in late November Alan flung aside his pen and yielded to the impulse that urged him to the lake shore . He did not mean to seek Lynde -- he would go to a part of the shore where there would be no likelihood of meeting her . But get away by himself he must .
A November storm was raging and there would be a certain satisfaction XXXXX breasting its buffets and fighting his way through it .
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