And then he saw her, Comstock did, and he was glad he hadn't murdered Grundy, and he was even gladder that his frozen tongue had not been able to utter words of love he had wanted to say to Helen. For he saw the girl for whom he had been searching and she was all his maddest dreams come true. * * * * * She stood up on her chair at one side of the hall and her eyes were as clear as Bowdler had said, and now they were flashing in anger. Her chest was heaving with indignation and Comstock found himself admiring the way her chest lent itself to this sort of treatment. Waving one hand in the air for attention, she said, "You fools! How much longer are you going to be duped by the maunderings of these old fools? Don't you know that it's all a lie?" The audience rose in its wrath and with one voice roared loudly enough to drown out all sounds that might have come from the girl. The Elder, pointing a shaking arthritic forefinger at the girl, said in a feeble voice that didn't reach through the tumult. "She is insane. Call the R.A.'s." But the crowd was too upset for any such normal proceedings. None of Comstock's reading had covered lynchings but that was the feeling that emanated from the furious people. This was a many-headed mob that wanted blood. She was grabbed by so many hands that Comstock wondered if anything would be left of her. One man, bigger and stronger than the rest of the crowd roared out, "To the stocks with her!" There was no way that Comstock could fight his way to her side, and even if he could have there was little he could have done but be attacked in his turn. "The stocks," he kept thinking. They were outside in the square, just to one side of a statue of The Grandfather, where the graven image could look down in its infinite wisdom and be soothed and assuaged by the sight of its recalcitrant grandchildren being punished in the stocks. If he waited, Comstock thought, till she was in them, there would be little he could do, for few ever lived through more than an hour of that treatment. The rocks and stones thrown by the good, lawful citizens of the community made sure of that. No he could not wait, and yet what could he do as of that moment? What had possessed her to make her speak out in the meeting? The little fool. He'd shake some of the nonsense out of her, if he ever got her away from those menacing hands. The crowd surged out of the meeting house, down the stairs and toward the statue. There was still no sign of any R.A. But then, why should there have been? Once everyone was at meeting, the R.A.'s could relax, having done their duty for the evening. But how long could the rumble, the frightening mutter of an outraged mob continue before some R.A. heard it?