He laughed to himself.

Then at length he moved again towards the door; and he paused in front of it.  There were no burglars!  The notion of burglars was idiotic!  He must put the notes back under the chair.  His whole salvation depended upon his putting the notes back under the chair on the landing!...  An affair of two seconds!...  With due caution he opened the door.  And simultaneously, at the very selfsame instant, he most distinctly heard the click of the latch of his aunt’s bedroom door, next his own!  Now, in a horrible quandary, trembling and perspiring, he felt completely nonplussed.  He pushed his own door to, but without quite closing it, for fear of a noise; and edged away from it towards the fireplace.

Had his aunt wakened up, and felt a misgiving about the notes, and found that they were not where they ought to be?

No further sound came though the crack of his door.  In the dwelling absolute silence seemed to be established.  He stood thus for an indefinite period in front of the fireplace, the brain’s action apparently suspended, until his agitation was somewhat composed.  And then, because he had no clear plan in his head, he put his hand into the pocket containing the notes and drew them out.  And immediately he was aware of a pleasant feeling of relief, as one who, after battling against a delicious and shameful habit, yields and is glad.  The beauty of the notes was eternal; no use could stale it.  Their intoxicating effect on him was just as powerful now as before supper.  And now, as then, the mere sight of them filled him with a passionate conviction that without them he would be ruined.  His tricks to destroy the suspicions of Horrocleave could not possibly be successful.  Within twenty-four hours he might be in prison if he could not forthwith command a certain sum of money.  And even possessing the money, he would still have an extremely difficult part to play.  It would be necessary for him to arrive early at the works, to change notes for gold in the safe, to erase many of his pencilled false additions, to devise a postponement of his crucial scene with Horrocleave, and lastly to invent a plausible explanation of the piling up of a cash reserve.

If he had not been optimistic and an incurable procrastinator and a believer in luck at the last moment, he would have seen that nothing but a miracle could save him if Horrocleave were indeed suspicious.  Happily for his peace of mind, he was incapable of looking a fact in the face.  Against all reason he insisted to himself that with the notes he might reach salvation.  He did not trouble even to estimate the chances of the notes being traced by their numbers.  Such is the magic force of a weak character.