But, "A fine old house!" Harding repeated. "Yes, a fine, dreary, chilly, decaying, melancholy old house." He leant back in his chair and looked up at Scarlett, "Did you ever see a more hopeless place in all your life?"
"Come! Not so bad as that!"
"Well, it seems to me that there is no hope about it," Reynold persisted; "no hope at all. A ghastly nightmare of a house. Why doesn't somebody pull it down!"
"You must have seen it under unfavourable circumstances."
"Very likely. I was there last October. It might be better in the summer-time."
"You stayed there?"
"Yes, a few days."
"Did they tell you I had been?" Scarlett asked, impulsively. "Did they speak of me—Mr. Hayes, and—Miss Strange?"
The men looked at each other as the name was spoken, Reynold's dark gaze crossing the bright grey-blue gleam of Adrian's glance. "They said something of a Mr. Scarlett who had been there—yes."