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 slender, unkempt figure stood out in the lightning flash. Before she could do more than wrench the pew door open, she felt her arm seized, and she was a prisoner! Almost immediately, she knew that it was Stockton and not Gerald Lawrence who held her in his grip.

"Easy on the maid!" Jerry's good-natured voice came from his place beside the pulpit. He had not stirred. Plainly he had been more than willing to give Sally a chance to escape back into the night whence she had come; but not so Stockton. He dragged her roughly out of the pew and thrust her up the aisle to Jerry.

"Wouldst have had the maid escape," growled Stockton, when he had pushed poor Sally down upon a pulpit step and had seated himself beside her and retained a grasp upon her thin wrist.

"What harm an she had?" queried Jerry lightly. "I fain would not bother wi' her!"

"Art a fool?" asked Stockton gruffly. "Ye do not know how much nor how little she hath o'erhead!"

"She hath proved herself our friend—did I not tell ye she gave me warning?" Young Lawrence's voice grew a little sharper, and for a moment there was hostile silence between the two men.

Then Sally broke it. "Your friend!" she said in a low, bitter voice. "Aye, but how did ye reward me, Jerry Lawrence?"

Jerry got slowly to his feet and walked over to