They swayed here and there again, North striving hard to get a hand free to strike a blow, but in vain; and the struggle was one savage wrestle, in which the weaker man seemed to be made the equal of the stronger by the passion in his breast. Meanwhile Leo Salis, trembling in every limb, crouched in the dark far corner of the vestry, and half lay huddled up, listening to the fierce struggle, too much unnerved to move. At last, though, the desire to escape--to make her way home--mastered all else, and she made for the nearest point of exit--the door into the churchyard; but though she passed her hand over it again and again, the key was not there. Tom Candlish had it in his pocket, and he was unable to set her free. She tried to creep past the contending couple to the chancel door, but as she strove for it, Tom Candlish was driven against her, nearly fell, and uttered a savage curse, which drowned her cry of agony, for he had crushed her delicate hand beneath his heel. She shrank back into the corner again, sobbing with fear: but as the struggle continued she nerved herself once more, and this time rose to her feet and tried the other way, just as Tom Candlish was gaining the mastery, and swung North round so savagely that he struck the wretched girl, and drove her heavily against the wall. Leo uttered a hoarse gasp, and stretched out her hands to save herself, when her left touched the oaken door leading into the chancel. This revived her just as her feelings were overcoming her and she was turning faint. With a quick motion she caught the latch, dragged it up, passed through the opening, and, closing the heavy oaken door, sped along the chancel and south aisle to the big door, unlatched it, and, hardly knowing what she did, passed into the porch, and relocked the door before running down to the lych-gate, round to the meadows, and then breathlessly back to the Rectory garden. "Safe!" she panted; "safe!" as she reached the rustic summer-house, and climbed rapidly up to gain her room, and, after softly closing the casement, sink down sobbing on the floor, bathed in perspiration, and with her breath coming in sobs. "That idiot will not dare to speak. I hope Tom will half kill him. What an escape! But no one will know." At this thought she breathed more freely, in happy ignorance of the fact that Dally was just closing her window, gleefully hoping that there had been a scene. That scene was over now, for as the big south door closed on Leo the struggle was at its fiercest, and Tom Candlish was getting the worst of the encounter. "Loose my throat, North!" he cried. "So cursedly ungentlemanly." "Yes; I am dealing with a scoundrel, whom Hartley Salis thrashed, and I'll thrash you too, you dog!" As he spoke, he dealt with his now freed hand a fierce blow right between Tom Candlish's eyes, making him stagger back.