Page "Gaudy Night" Paragraph 6

The attacks build to a crisis, and the college community of students, dons and servants is almost torn apart by suspicion and fear.

There is an attempt to drive a vulnerable student to suicide, and a physical assault on Harriet that almost kills her.

The perpetrator is finally unmasked by Wimsey as one of the college servants, revealed to be the widow of a disgraced academic at a northern university.

Her husband's academic fraud had been exposed by one of his fellow dons there, destroying his career and driving him to suicide.

The don has since moved to Shrewsbury College, and the campaign has been the widow's revenge against intellectual women who move outside their " proper " domestic sphere.