But the blinds had not been lowered and light from a street lamp outside turned the darkness into twilight.

No one came forward to greet him, but the room was not empty.

He saw Repton and his wife huddled close together on a sofa in a recess by the fireplace.
"I thought that I had better come up from Bombay," said Thresk, as he stood in the middle of the room.

No answer was returned to him for a few moments and then it was Repton himself who spoke.
"Yes, yes," he said, and he got up from the sofa.

"I think we had better have some light," he added in a strange indifferent voice.