'Who is that ?' 'Only me, sir,' replied the voice.

'Now if you please, ma'am.' A gleam of light shone into the place, and presently the servant girl appeared, bearing a light, and followed by her young mistress, who seemed to be overwhelmed by modesty and confusion.
At sight of the young lady, Nicholas started and changed colour; his heart beat violently, and he stood rooted to the spot.

At that instant, and almost simultaneously with her arrival and that of the candle, there was heard a loud and furious knocking at the street-door, which caused Newman Noggs to jump up, with great agility, from a beer-barrel on which he had been seated astride, and to exclaim abruptly, and with a face of ashy paleness, 'Bobster, by the Lord!' The young lady shrieked, the attendant wrung her hands, Nicholas gazed from one to the other in apparent stupefaction, and Newman hurried to and fro, thrusting his hands into all his pockets successively, and drawing out the linings of every one in the excess of his irresolution.
It was but a moment, but the confusion crowded into that one moment no imagination can exaggerate.
'Leave the house, for Heaven's sake! We have done wrong, we deserve it all,' cried the young lady.

'Leave the house, or I am ruined and undone for ever.' 'Will you hear me say but one word ?' cried Nicholas.

'Only one.