He knew nothing of love and imagined that it counted for nothing in his life . He admitted that his curiosity was aflame about the girl , but it never occurred to him that she meant or could mean anything to him but an attractive enigma which once solved would lose its attraction . The young women he knew in Rexton , whose simple , pleasant friendship he valued , had the placid , domestic charm of their own sweet-breathed , windless orchards . Lynde Oliver had the fascination of the lake shore -- wild , remote , untamed -- the lure of the wilderness and the primitive . There was nothing more personal in his thought of her , and yet when he recalled Isabel King 's sneer he felt an almost personal resentment . * * * * * During the following fortnight Alan made many trips to the shore -- and he always went by the branch road to the Four Winds point . He did not attempt to conceal from himself that he hoped to meet Lynde Oliver again . In this he was unsuccessful . Sometimes he saw her at a distance along the shore but she always disappeared as soon as seen . Occasionally as he crossed the point he saw her working in her garden but he never went very near the house , feeling that he had no right to spy on it or her in any way . He soon became convinced that she avoided him purposely and the conviction piqued him . He felt an odd masterful desire to meet her face to face and make her look at him . Sometimes he called himself a fool and vowed he would go no more to the Four Winds shore . Yet he inevitably went . He did not find in the shore the comfort and inspiration he had formerly found . Something had come between his soul and the soul of the wilderness -- something he did not recognize or formulate -- a nameless , haunting longing that shaped itself about the memory of a cold sweet face and starry , indifferent eyes , grey as the lake at dawn . Of Captain Anthony he never got even a glimpse , but he saw the old cousin several times , going and coming about the yard and its environs . Finally one day he met her , coming up a path which led to a spring down in a firry hollow . She was carrying two heavy pails of water and Alan asked permission to help her . He half expected a repulse , for the tall , grim old woman had a rather stern and forbidding look , but after gazing at him a moment in a somewhat scrutinizing manner she said briefly , `` You may , if you like . ''
Alan took the pails and followed her , the path not being wide enough XXXXX two .
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