Hide from sweetheart in panic (7)
I believe the answer is:
leather
'hide' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'sweetheart in panic' is the wordplay.
'sweetheart' becomes 'e' (the heart/centre of 'sweet').
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'panic' becomes 'lather' (as in a phrase like 'in a lather').
'e' going into 'lather' is 'LEATHER'.
'from' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for leather that I've seen before include "Thrash" , "Flog; hide" , "kid, say" , "Dressed skin" , "Polishing cloth" .)