Callon allowed the letter to slip from his fingers, and lay for a while very still, feeling rather helpless, rather afraid. It was not merely the amount of the bill which troubled him, although that was inconveniently large. But there were other reasons. His eyes wandered to a drawer in his dressing-table. He got out of bed and unlocked it. At the bottom of that drawer lay the other reasons, piled one upon the other--letters couched in just the same words as that which he had received this morning, and--still worse!---signed by this same firm of Humphreys and Neill. Moreover, every one of those letters had reached him within the last ten days. It seemed that all his tradesmen had suddenly placed their books in the hands of Messrs. Humphreys and Neill. Callon took the letters back to his bed. There were quite an astonishing number of them. Callon himself was surprised to see how deep he was in debt. They littered the bed--tailors' bills; bills for expensive little presents of jewellery; bills run up at restaurants for dinners and suppers; bills for the hire of horses and carriages; bills of all kinds--and there were just Mr. Callon's election expenses in Mr. Callon's exchequer that morning. Even if he parted with them, they would not pay a third part of the sum claimed. Fear invaded him; he saw no way out of his troubles. Given time, he could borrow enough, no doubt, scrape enough money together one way or another to tide himself over the difficulty. His hand searched for Millie Stretton's letter and found it, and rejected it. He needed time there; he must walk warily or he would spoil all. And looking at the letters he knew that he had not the time. It was improbable, nay more than improbable, that all these bills were in the hands of one firm by mere chance. No; somewhere he had an enemy. A man--or it might be a woman--was striking at him out of the dark, striking with knowledge too. For the blow fell where he could least parry it. Mr. Mudge would have been quite satisfied could he have seen Callon as he lay that morning with the summer sunlight pouring into his bedroom. He looked more than his age, and his face was haggard. He felt that a hand was at his throat, a hand which gripped and gripped with an ever-increasing pressure. He tried to guess who his enemy might be. But there were so many who might be glad to do him an ill-turn. Name after name occurred to him, but amongst those names was not the name of Mr. Mudge. That shy and inoffensive man was the last whom he would have suspected to be meddling with his life. Callon sprang out of bed. He must go down to Lincoln's Inn Fields and interview Messrs. Humphreys and Neill. Summonses would never do with a general election so near. He dressed quickly, and soon after ten was in the office of that firm. He was received by a bald and smiling gentleman in spectacles.