Mrs. Warne bridled up.
'Bagmen, indeed! Tut, woman, surely you may trust me?'
'I can trust none. You are not her mother. You must take us both.'
'I cannot receive you both. I have made you a fair offer. If you will not accept, go over the river to your own parish.'
Then Mrs. Warne retreated into the bar, shut the door, drew down the window, and went to the fire and the commercials. Jane Marley left the Red Lion. The cloud darkened on her brow.
She said no word to her daughter, but directed her way up the street to a small shop, in which already a light was burning.
In the greensand beds about Seaton, or rather on the beach, washed from them, are found chalcedonies, green and yellow, red jasper, and moss agates, also brown petrified wood that takes a high polish. There was a little dealer in these at Seaton, an old man who polished and set them, and sold them as memorials to visitors coming there for sea-bathing and air. To this man, Thomas Gasset by name, the distressed woman betook herself.
He was sitting at his work-table, with a huge pair of spectacles in horn rims over his nose, engaged in mounting a chalcedony as a seal.
He looked up.
'Got some stones for me, Mrs. Marley?' he asked. 'I hope good ones this time. Those Winefred brought last were worthless.'