Then the door flew open, a maid appeared, the luggage was carried into the hall, and Mr. Hayes came hurrying out to meet his guest. "Welcome to Mitchelhurst Place!" he exclaimed. That "Welcome to Mitchelhurst Place!" had been in his thoughts for a couple of hours at least, and now that it was uttered it seemed very quickly over. Harding, who was paying the driver out of a handful of change, dropped a couple of coins, made a hurried attempt to regain them, and finally shook hands confusedly with Mr. Hayes, while the man and the maid pursued the rolling shillings round their feet. "Thank you--you are very kind," he said, and then saw Barbara in the background. She had paused on the threshold of a firelit room, and behind her the warm radiance was glancing on a bit of white-panelled wall. Reynold hastily got rid of his financial difficulties and went forward. "Oh, what a cold drive you must have had!" she cried, when their hands met. "You are like ice! Do come to the fire." "We thought you would have been here sooner," said Mr. Hayes. "The days draw in now, and it gets to be very cold and damp sometimes when the sun goes down." Harding murmured something about not having been able to get away earlier. "This isn't the regular drawing-room, you know," his host explained. "I like space, but there is a little too much of it in that great room--you must have a look at it to-morrow. I don't care to sit by my fireside and see Barbara at her piano across an acre or two of carpet. To my mind this is big enough for two or three people." "Quite," said Reynold. "The yellow drawing-room they called this," the other continued. The young man glanced round. The room was lofty and large enough for more than the two or three people of whom Mr. Hayes had spoken. But for the ruddy firelight it might have looked cold, with its cream-white walls, its rather scanty furniture, and the yellow of its curtains and chairs faded to a dim tawny hue. But the liberal warmth and light of the blazing pile on the hearth irradiated it to the furthest corner, and filled it with wavering brightness. "It's all exactly as it was in your uncle's time," said Mr. Hayes. "When he could not go on any longer, Croft took the whole thing just as it stood, with all the old furniture. But for that I would not have come here." "All the charm would have been lost, wouldn't it?" said Barbara. "The charm--yes. Besides, one had need be a millionnaire to do anything with such a great empty shell. I suspect a millionnaire would find plenty to do here as it is." "I suppose it had been neglected for a long while?" Reynold questioned with his hard utterance. Mr. Hayes nodded, arching his brows.