| PROLOGUE | CHAPTER I | CHAPTER II | CHAPTER III | CHAPTER IV |
| CHAPTER V | CHAPTER VI | CHAPTER VII | CHAPTER VIII | CHAPTER IX |
In San Francisco the "rainy season" had been making itself a reality tothe wondering Eastern immigrant. There were short days of driftingclouds and flying sunshine, and long succeeding nights of incessantdownpour, when the rain rattled on the thin shingles or drummed on theresounding zinc of pioneer roofs. The shifting sand-dunes on theoutskirts were beaten motionless and sodden by the onslaught ofconsecutive storms; the southeast trades brought the saline breath ofthe outlying Pacific even to the busy haunts of Commercial and Kearneystreets; the low-lying Mission road was a quagmire; along the CityFront, despite of piles and pier and wharf, the Pacific tides stillasserted themselves in mud and ooze as far as Sansome Street; thewooden sidewalks of Clay and Montgomery streets were mere floatingbridges or buoyant pontoons superposed on elastic bogs; Battery Streetwas the Silurian beach of that early period on which tin cans,packing-boxes, freight, household furniture, and even the runaway crewsof deserted ships had been cast away. There were dangerous and unknowndepths in Montgomery Street and on the Plaza, and the wheels of apassing carriage hopelessly mired had to be lifted by the volunteerhands of a half dozen high-booted wayfarers, whose wearers weresufficiently content to believe that a woman, a child, or an invalidwas behind its closed windows, without troubling themselves or theoccupant by looking through the glass.
It was a carriage that, thus released, eventually drew up before thesuperior public edifice known as the City Hall. From it a woman,closely veiled, alighted, and quickly entered the building. A fewpassers-by turned to look at her, partly from the rarity of the femalefigure at that period, and partly from the greater rarity of its beingwell formed and even ladylike.
As she kept her way along the corridor and ascended an iron staircase,she was passed by others more preocc