"Don't talk such utter damn nonsense," said the angry Hal, "I've done nothing yet."
"Help!" cried the lounging figure at the top of the wall. "He's done nothing yet—but——!"
"Will you be quiet, sir," roared Hal desperately red in the face; "you'll alarm the neighbourhood and make yourself a laughing stock——"
The Duke had seen the flutter of a white dress coming through the little glass house, and as the girl with an alarmed face ran into the garden he made his appeal to her.
"Miss Terrill," he said brokenly, "as one human being to another, I beg you to save me from this savage and I fear reckless young man. Call him off! Chain him up! Let him turn from me the basilisk fires of his vengeful eyes."
"I thought—I thought," faltered the girl.
"Not yet," said the Duke cheerfully, "you have arrived in the nick of time to save one who is your ever grateful servant, from a terrible and, I cannot help thinking, untimely end."
She turned with an angry stamp of her foot to her cousin.
"Will you please take me into the house, Hal," she said ignoring the young man on the wall, and his exaggerated expression of relief.
VIII