came. And sometimes, as the music rose, it seemed close at my hand,
and, again, to be floating high in the air above my head. Although I
was surrounded by thousands of householders, I was as completely lost
as though I had been set down by night in the Sahara Desert. There
seemed to be no reason in waiting longer for an escort, so I again
set out, and at once bumped against a low, iron fence. At first I
believed this to be an area railing, but, on following it, I found
that it stretched for a long distance, and that it was pierced at
regular intervals with gates. I was standing, uncertainly, with my
hand on one of these, when a square of light suddenly opened in the
night, and in it I saw, as you see a picture thrown by a biograph in
a darkened theatre, a young gentleman in evening dress, and, back of
him, the lights of a hall. I guessed, from its elevation and distance
from the sidewalk, that this light must come from the door of a house
set back from the street, and I determined to approach it and ask the
young man to tell me where I was. But, in fumbling with the lock of
the gate, I instinctively bent my head, and when I raised it again
the door had partly closed, leaving only a narrow shaft of light.
Whether the young man had re-entered the house, or had left it I
could not tell, but I hastened to open the gate, and as I stepped
forward I found myself upon an asphalt walk. At the same instant
there was the sound of quick steps upon the path, and someone rushed
past me. I called to him, but he made no reply, and I heard the gate
click and the footsteps hurrying away upon the sidewalk.

"Under other circumstances the young man's rudeness, and his
recklessness in dashing so hurriedly through the mist, would have
struck me as peculiar, but everything was so distorted by the fog
that at the moment I did not consider it. The door was still as he
had left it, partly open. I went up the path, and, after much