To lose all, with all in his grasp, to fail upon the threshold, was a thing which bore no looking at; and it was with a nervous hand and eyes cast fearfully behind him that he plied the heavy iron knocker which adorned the door.
He could not turn his gaze from a knot of ruffians, who were gathered under one of the tottering gables on the farther side of the street.

They seemed to be watching him, and he fancied--though the distance rendered this impossible--that he could see suspicion growing in their eyes.

At any moment they might cross the roadway, they might approach, they might challenge him.

And at the thought he knocked and knocked again.

Why did not the porter come?
Ay, why?
For now a score of contingencies came into the young man's mind and tortured him.