He led the way, with something of an air of dubitation, and we followed.  The road he had chosen seemed to lead to nothing and nowhere.  We had not gone many yards from the workhouse gates before we were confronted by something like chaos.  In front and on either side of us were large spaces of waste land.  At some more or less remote period attempts appeared to have been made at brick-making,—­there were untidy stacks of bilious-looking bricks in evidence.  Here and there enormous weather-stained boards announced that ‘This Desirable Land was to be Let for Building Purposes.’  The road itself was unfinished.  There was no pavement, and we had the bare uneven ground for sidewalk.  It seemed, so far as I could judge, to lose itself in space, and to be swallowed up by the wilderness of ‘Desirable Land’ which lay beyond.  In the near distance there were houses enough, and to spare—­of a kind.  But they were in other roads.  In the one in which we actually were, on the right, at the end, there was a row of unfurnished carcases, but only two buildings which were in anything like a fit state for occupation.  One stood on either side, not facing each other,—­ there was a distance between them of perhaps fifty yards.  The sight of them had a more exciting effect on Mr Holt than it had on me.  He moved rapidly forward,—­coming to a standstill in front of the one upon our left, which was the nearer of the pair.

‘This is the house!’ he exclaimed.

He seemed almost exhilarated,—­I confess that I was depressed.  A more dismal-looking habitation one could hardly imagine.  It was one of those dreadful jerry-built houses which, while they are still new, look old.  It had quite possibly only been built a year or two, and yet, owing to neglect, or to poverty of construction, or to a combination of the two, it was already threatening to tumble down.  It was a small place, a couple of storeys high, and would have been dear—­I should think!—­at thirty pounds a year.  The windows had surely never been washed since the house was built,—­those on the upper floor seemed all either cracked or broken.  The only sign of occupancy consisted in the fact that a blind was down behind the window of the room on the ground floor.  Curtains there were none.  A low wall ran in front, which had apparently at one time been surmounted by something in the shape of an iron railing,—­a rusty piece of metal still remained on one end; but, since there was only about a foot between it and the building, which was practically built upon the road,—­whether the wall was intended to ensure privacy, or was merely for ornament, was not clear.

‘This is the house!’ repeated Mr Holt, showing more signs of life than I had hitherto seen in him.

Sydney looked it up and down,—­it apparently appealed to his aesthetic sense as little as it did to mine.

‘Are you sure?’

‘I am certain.’

‘It seems empty.’

’It seemed empty to me that night,—­that is why I got into it in search of shelter.’