"
* * * * *
A month later, the young man was traveling, as fast as modern steam and
steel could carry him, toward the western edge of the continent.
He was flying from the city of his birth, as from a place accursed. He had
set his face toward a new land--determined to work out, there, his
promise--the promise that he did not, at the first, understand.
How he misunderstood,--how he attempted to use his inheritance to carry
out what he first thought was his mother's wish,--and how he came at last
to understand, is the story that I have to tell.
Chapter II
The Woman with the Disfigured Face
The Golden State Limited, with two laboring engines, was climbing the
desert side of San Gorgonio Pass.
Now San Gorgonio Pass--as all men should know--is one of the two eastern
gateways to the beautiful heart of Southern California. It is, therefore,
the gateway to the scenes of my story.
As the heavy train zigzagged up the long, barren slope of the mountain, in
its effort to lessen the heavy grade, the young man on the platform of the
observation car could see, far to the east, the shimmering, sun-filled
haze that lies, always, like a veil of mystery, over the vast reaches of
the Colorado Desert.
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