Holt had had "trouble with his wife," from whom he had parted a year
before. Whether the trouble was anything more serious than
"incompatibility of temper," he is probably the only living person
that knows: he is not addicted to the vice of confidences. Yet he
has related the incident herein set down to at least one person
without exacting a pledge of secrecy. He is now living in Europe.

One evening he had left the house of a brother whom he was visiting,
for a stroll in the country. It may be assumed--whatever the value
of the assumption in connection with what is said to have occurred--
that his mind was occupied with reflections on his domestic
infelicities and the distressing changes that they had wrought in
his life.

Whatever may have been his thoughts, they so possessed him that he
observed neither the lapse of time nor whither his feet were
carrying him; he knew only that he had passed far beyond the town
limits and was traversing a lonely region by a road that bore no
resemblance to the one by which he had left the village. In brief,
he was "lost."

Realizing his mischance, he smiled; central New York is not a region
of perils, nor does one long remain lost in it. He turned about and
went back the way that he had come. Before he had gone far he
observed that the landscape was growing more distinct--was
brightening. Everything was suffused with a soft, red glow in which
he saw his shadow projected in the road before him. "The moon is
rising," he said to himself. Then he remembered that it was about
the time of the new moon, and if that tricksy orb was in one of its
stages of visibility it had set long before. He stopped and faced