Page:Doctor Grimshawe's Secret (1883).djvu/391

that the steward is acting in Grimshawe's interest, and therefore in deadly opposition to their own. Precisely what the steward's mission in life was, will appear here-after.

The study above alluded to, with others, amounting to about a hundred pages, will be published as a supplement to a future edition of this work.

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 delu-