"Did you ever hear of the King's Serf?" asked Bubbles suddenly.
"The King's Serf?" he repeated, bewildered.
"When the rope which was hanging some poor devil of a highwayman broke—when the axe was too blunt to cut a robber rascal's head off—when a man being condemned to death survived by some extraordinary accident—well, such a man became thereafter the King's Serf. He belonged to the King, body, soul, and spirit, and no one but the King could touch him. He lost his identity. He was above the law!"
Bubbles said all this very, very fast—almost as if she had learnt it off by heart.
"What a curious thing," said Bill slowly.
Bubbles had so many queer, out-of-the-way bits of knowledge. She was always surprising him by the things she knew. It was the more curious that she never seemed to open a book.
"Come a little nearer," she ordered. "You're so far away, Bill!"
She spoke with a touch of imperious fretfulness, and he moved a little further up the bed.
"Nearer, nearer!" she cried; and then she suddenly sat up in bed, and flinging her arms round him, she laid her dark, curly head on his faithful heart. "I want to tell you," she whispered, "that from now onward I'm Bill Donnington's Serf—much more than that poor brute I've told you of was ever the King's Serf. For, after all, the King hadn't cut the rope, or blunted the edge of the hatchet----"
"Bubbles!" he exclaimed. "Oh, Bubbles, d'you really mean that?"