Either the shutters were shut, or there was no light within, for the windows were blank and dark.

It was a slight thing, but enough to intensify that shapeless foreboding against which he had been struggling throughout his journey.
"You must have come to the wrong house," he said to the cabman as he got out.
"No, sir, this is 14." Yes, it was the right number.

Gilbert read it on the door; and yet it could scarcely be the right house; for tied to the door-handle was a placard with "Apartments" engraved upon it, and this house would hardly be large enough to accommodate other lodgers besides Mr.Nowell and his daughter.

Yet there is no knowing the capabilities of a London lodging-house in an obscure quarter, and there might be some vacant garret in the roof, or some dreary two-pair back, dignified by the name of "apartments." Gilbert gave a loud hurried knock.

There was a delay which seemed to him interminable, then a hasty shuffling of slipshod feet upon the basement stairs, then the glimmer of a light through the keyhole, the removal of a chain, and at last the opening of the door.