d grant it!

April 29. Our sleepy little town has had a small sensation. The only
knowledge of crime which we ever have is when a rowdy undergraduate
breaks a few lamps or comes to blows with a policeman. Last night,
however, there was an attempt made to break-into the branch of the Bank
of England, and we are all in a flutter in consequence.

Parkenson, the manager, is an intimate friend of mine, and I found him
very much excited when I walked round there after breakfast. Had the
thieves broken into the counting-house, they would still have had the
safes to reckon with, so that the defence was considerably stronger
than the attack. Indeed, the latter does not appear to have ever been
very formidable. Two of the lower windows have marks as if a chisel or
some such instrument had been pushed under them to force them open.
The police should have a good clue, for the wood-work had been done
with green paint only the day before, and from the smears it is evident
that some of it has found its way on to the criminal's hands or clothes.

4.30 P. M. Ah, that accursed woman! That thrice accursed woman!
Never mind! She shall not beat me! No, she shall not! But, oh, the
she-devil! She has taken my professorship. Now she would take my
honor. Is there nothing I can do against her, nothing save---- Ah,
but, hard pushed as I am, I cannot bring myself to think of that!

It was about an hour ago that I went into my bedroom, and was brushing
my hair before the glass, when suddenly my eyes lit upon something
which left me so sick and cold that I sat down upon the edge of the bed
and began to cry. It is many a long year since I shed tears, but all
my nerve was gone, and I could but sob and sob in impotent grief and
anger. There was my house jacket, the coat I usually wear after
dinner, hanging on its peg by the wardrobe, with the right sleeve
thickly crusted from wrist to elbow with daubs of green paint.

So this was what she meant by another turn of the screw! She had made
a public imbecile of me. Now she would brand me as a criminal. This
time she has failed. But how about the next? I dare not think of
it--and of Agatha and my poor old mother! I wish that I were dead!

Yes, this is the other turn of the screw. And this is also what she
meant, no doubt, when she said that I had not realized yet the power
she has over me. I look back at my account of my conversation with
her, and I see how she declared that wit