"You!" replied the Duchess, atop of a big bramble interspersed with stakes. "You, you bad, evil-minded man!"
And she pitched into the mould at Mr. Minnidick's feet, head foremost.
"Darn it all, I say!" quoth Mr. Minnidick, while the small boy with the sharply-pointed nose broke out incontinently a-laughing.
"You must go to the Duke, Mr. Bush," proceeded her Grace, getting right end up, and raising her hands towards heaven. "You must go to him and tell him how innocent I am!"
"Innercent—oh, crikey!" said the small boy, emerging for an instant from his convulsions and speaking in a very high treble voice. "Innercent, does she sy?" and he relapsed again into his fit.
Mr. Bush began to look very sulky, and rather as if he were meditating a nap. The Duchess clasped his knees.
"Oh, Mr. Bush!" she wailed; "do me justice! set me right! Go to my husband and tell him what a true wife I have always been to him!"
"Give over! Give over now!"
"I will not give over! I have followed you here, for you alone can tell the Duke that there's nothing between——Oh, hide me! hide me! There's a carriage coming! Oh, if I am seen here I am lost for ever! Hide me!"