pleasure, and the value of these things is raised, not lowered, by danger
and uncertainty. Quickly his stoicism oozed away; he turned again.
Barely avoiding the rush of a crowd of wretches who were bearing a
swooning victim to the river, he hurried through the Rue des Lombards,
and reached in safety the house beside the Golden Maid.

He had no doubt now on which side of the Maid Madame St. Lo lived; the
house was plain before him. He had only to knock. But in proportion as
he approached his haven, his anxiety grew. 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. Had Madame St. Lo withdrawn to safer quarters and
closed the house? Or, good Catholic as she was, had she given way to
panic, and determined to open to no one? Or was she ill? Or had she
perished in the general disorder? Or--

And then, even as the men began to slink towards him, his heart leapt. He
heard a footstep heavy and slow move through the house. It came nearer
and nearer. A moment, and an iron-grated Judas-hole in the door slid