Chunder Singh was waiting respectfully for the conclusion of her sentence.
'I want particularly to speak to him,' went on Lucy more fluently. 'Perhaps you wouldn't mind saying that I have a message for him—I suppose,' looking round at the other ladies with some bewilderment, 'that it is for him. You know he told us he was an Englishman; but this isn't much like an English house. And how does he come to be a rajah? Oh! dear, if Grace could only have come herself!'
'His Excellency was educated in England,' broke in the mellifluous voice of Chunder Singh.
'And some of us think him more English than Indian,' added Lutfullah pleasantly.
'You can speak English too, chief citizen!' cried Lucy. 'This is most extraordinary. Really I begin to think that we must have died last night, and that we are in a sort of half-English, half-Indian paradise. But,' with a deep sigh, 'that can't be, for Grace would certainly have been here before us. Oh, my poor Grace! my dear Grace! Can't anyone tell me where you are?'
'Hush! Lucy. Hush! We shall never know how they went. She and my lovely Kit,' cried Mrs. Durant, weeping bitterly. 'Little could I have thought to what his love for her would have brought him——'
'Do you give them up?' cried Lucy, flashing round upon her friend fiercely. 'I don't, and just because they are together! Oh! Mr. Major-domo, if you have a heart—and you look as if you had—find this mysterious prince, who is an Englishman and not an Englishman, and ask him, for pity's sake, to speak to us.'
'No doubt his Highness will request the honour of speech with you later,' said Chunder Singh. 'At present he must not be disturbed.'
'Did he say so? Oh! where is he?' sobbed Lucy. 'He can't know how dreadful the danger is! I was ashamed of myself for being able to sleep last night. If Grace dies'—clutching at her muslin robe after a fashion that, to the grave Indian, was scarcely decorous. 'If Grace dies, I shall never forgive myself.'
'I will see if his Highness is awake,' said Chunder Singh retreating, while Lucy, now in a perfect paroxysm of grief, was led to the summer-house by her companions.