t the
beginning of the serial's second installment.]

PRECEDING CHAPTERS BRIEFLY RETOLD

When the City of Panama foundered off the coast of Chile, Lawrence
Gordon suddenly realized he had been left, in the frenzy of the
disaster, alone on the deck.

Then, before he had fully recovered from the lash of the wind and the
violence of the waves, he was swept overboard and into the seething
maelstrom of an angry sea.

As he came up from the depths he struck a heavy timber, and with the
strength of desperation he dragged his weight up on it and clung fast.

"Land may be in sight," was his thought, "and I shall never know!"
Lawrence Gordon was blind.

Hours had passed. The wind-lashed water beat him as he lay on the
timber. Fear and the cold drove him to rave at life and death alike.
Finally, over the roar of the wind, he caught the tumbling of breakers.
His plank was spun round, the swell lifted him from his position, and
the next breaker rolled him past the water-line.

Once with the feel of the sand beneath his feet he ran until a rock
caught him above the knees and sent him headlong.

When he regained consciousness he returned to the water to hunt for
clams. As he came ashore again he tripped over an object that on
investigation proved a woman.

Claire Barkley answered to his ministrations, and recognized the blind
man she had observed on the boat. She could furnish the eyes for an
investigation of their situation inland, but her ankle had been sprained
in the wreck and she was unable to walk.

When months after, just as they had reached the limit of human
endurance--what with hunger, the cold, and privation--they stumbled into
the cabin of Philip Ortez. The Spanish mountaineer declared it no less
than a miracle that a blind man should have carried a woman in his arms
half across the Andes--from the coast to the borders of Bolivia.

Then they settled down to spend the winter in Philip's cabin. And now
the latent antagonism of the woman, who was so curiously stirred by the
apparent coldness of this blind sculptor to her charm, began to plan the
man's punishment.

[Transcriber's Note: The following summary originally appeared at the
beginning of the serial's third installment. The summary at the
beginning of the serial's fourth installment, if one was present, was
not available when preparing this electronic edition.]

PRECEDING CHAPTERS BRIEFLY RETOLD

When Lawrence Gordon, numb with cold and hung