From Exile Author:James Payn General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1881 Original Publisher: Tauchnitz Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can selec... more »t from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE RIVALS. Helen and Margaret had not met since the day they had stood on the frozen mere together, fast friends, although very different in their characters. Helen regarded Margaret with sincere admiration and respect, and with unfeigned pity too for the loss of her lover, but with regard to that incident also with a touch of what was almost contempt. She could not understand a girl's " throwing up the sponge" so early in life's battle because the man of her choice was denied to her. There were plenty more men in the world who had not gone away to sea and got drowned, some of whom would surely have made as good husbands. She was too inde- pendent, and, indeed, generous of spirit, to envy Margaret her worldly prosperity, but since she was so prosperous her melancholy was the more inexplicable to her. If she had been poor, to have let slip so great a prize might have been a most serious misfortune ; but as it was, it seemed to Helen that it was at least remediable. Her friend's conduct had some resemblance in her eyes to that of Rousseau (he was among the miscellaneous authors in her father's library), who .. found a pleasure in " sitting on some stone or bank and seeing his tears drop into the water." But when Frank was no longer a mere memory, but had come home in the flesh, and faithless, Helen's views of Margaret had changed. She felt that her friend had just cause of complaint against Frank; and that it was at least natural, if not just, that she should complain of her. It was true she had not robbed her of him, but what woman would allow as much w...« less