Doctor Grimshawe's Secret — a Romance

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

CHAP. XXIV.

Note 1. Author’s note.—“Redclyffe lies in a dreamy state, thinking fantastically, as if he were one of the seven sleepers. He does not yet open his eyes, but lies there in a maze.”

Note 2. Author’s note.—“Redclyffe must look at the old man quietly and dreamily, and without surprise, for a long while.”

Note 3. Presumably the true name of Doctor Grimshawe.

Note 4. This mysterious prisoner, Sir Edward Redclyffe, is not, of course, the Sir Edward who founded the Hospital, but a descendant of that man, who ruined Doctor Grimshawe’s daughter, and is the father of Elsie. He had been confined in this chamber, by the Doctor’s contrivance, ever since, Omskirk being his jailer, as is foreshadowed in Chapter XL He has been kept in the belief that he killed Grimshawe, in a struggle that took place between them; and that his confinement in the secret chamber is voluntary on his own part,—a measure of precaution to prevent arrest and execution for murder. In this miserable delusion he has cowered there for five and thirty years. This, and various other dusky points, are partly elucidated in the notes hereafter to be appended to this volume.