"The Moonlit Road" is a gothic horror short story by American Civil War soldier, wit, and writer Ambrose Bierce.
He recounts a dream in which he suspects his wife is being unfaithful and he returns from a business trip early to find a strange man leaving his house.
[2] The murderer thought the ghost of his victim was aware of his culpability, for her eyes fixed on his "with an infinite gravity which is not reproach, nor hate, nor menace, nor anything less terrible than recognition".
In an ironic twist, the ghost's testimony reveals she did not know who her murderer was and approached her husband "in the loving hope that he would be able to see her, smiling and consciously beautiful".
[4] "The Moonlit Road" has been cited as a template for "In a Grove", a short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa in which the murder of a samurai is recounted by multiple witnesses and in the end, the victim gives deposition through a medium.
In 2009, the Library of America selected this story for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American Fantastic Tales, edited by Peter Straub.