Bullstone Farm, the ancient abode of Jacob's family, first appeared, and he spoke to his companion concerning the name.
"We were called Bullhornstone once," he said, "and on the old graves at Ugborough village you can see slates dating back far more than a hundred years under that name. But I suppose some busy forefather of mine found it was too much of a mouthful and dropped the 'horn.' And he dropped his luck at the same time. My grandfather, who died here, called himself 'Bullstone,' and there's a very good tomb to him and my grandmother at Ugborough that I'll show you some day. The family's nearly petered out. I am an only son; but I've got cousins in America—in Kentucky—heard from one not six months ago."
Margery was interested by one detail of this narrative.
"How did your forbear drop his luck?" she asked.
"Along of a wicked wife," he answered shortly. "No tale for your nice ears, yet a common enough thing for that matter. We're jealous folk, or was. He had a wife, and she had a lover, and Michael Bullstone caught them together and slew the pair of them. Then he gave himself up; but women were a bit lower in male value then than they are now, I reckon. The case was plain, but the jury—married men, no doubt—brought in Michael Bullstone not guilty. It put the fear of God into a good few wives I reckon. But the strange part of the tale is to tell. He was forty when he killed them—-forty and a childless man. But at fifty he married one of the Elvins, of the same family that are at Owley Farm now. Jemima Elvin he married, and he had three sons and one daughter by her. People said it was like the tale of Job—only in that case the Devil took everything from the man but his wife; and in Michael Bullstone's case, his bad wife was the only thing he lost, and that by his own act."
"'Tis beyond belief to me," said Margery, "that a woman can ever roam from the man she loves."
"Such good-for-noughts don't know the meaning of love," he answered; "and you'll find such dregs and trash of women generally end in the gutter, where they belong."
"Must be an awful thing if love dies," she said.
"Love doesn't die," he answered with ingenuous conviction. "The woman that can look on her husband with a cold heart never loved him. True love is what you and I know—built for a lifetime."
"At first I was so proud, when you told me you loved me, that I couldn't feel anything else but the pride. It seemed too wonderful a thing to have happened to such an everyday girl as me. But when it came home, then the secret love I'd hid for you burst out in a sort of triumphant worship, till I felt, even if I died that instant minute, I'd have had more happiness than any woman ever deserved."