She had forfeited his friendship through a blunder nameless but irrevocable.

Once or twice she wondered if Mrs.Moon could be at the bottom of it--or Martha.

Had her aunt carried out her dreadful threat of giving him a hint to send in his account?
And had the hint implied that for the future all accounts with him were closed?
Had he called on Mrs.
Moon and been received with crushing hostility?
Or had Martha permitted herself to say that she, Miss Quincey, was out when perhaps he knew for a positive fact that she was in?
But she soon dismissed these conjectures as inadequate and fell back on her original hypothesis.
And all the time the Old Lady's eyes, and her voice too, were sharper than ever; from the corner where she dreamed she watched Miss Quincey incessantly between the dreams.

At times the Old Lady was shaken with terrible and mysterious mirth.

Bastian Cautley began to figure fantastically in her conversation.