The Townsman; by Pearl S. Buck.

About a man who loved a woman through his life, and a continent that was in the process of being settled.

This is the story of a small place in west around the time when immigration from Euope was settling the US and people were going into the middle of the country, driving westwards, building their homes and towns, with nothing but prairies to start with.

There were fires sweeping sometimes to survive, and then rains made mud dangerous and were dealth with using boardwalks. There were schools to start for the children that were there already, and more.

And there were young men and women trying to find their way in life - a young woman who is afraid of poverty and seeks comfort of comparative wealth but in the process forsakes the deep love she had been fortunate enough to find and not fortunate enough to recognise in its qualities of rareness and genuineness - she marries a young handsome man who does not love her eventually, after all.

Then there is the youn woman who marries the spurned lover, knowing all and yet caring deeply for him and his family, caring for them - and while he comes to recognise her sterling qualities his love for her is never the same although very genuine and deep and reverent.

I hope the story I am thinking of is this title - the story I always thought of more as about settling a new continent and making a life and a country.