Sir Simon's starvation in the secret chamber

Sir Simon's starvation in the secret chamber is the concealed death behind his ghostly existence: after murdering his wife, he was imprisoned by her brothers and left to die. The secret is finally disclosed when Virginia Otis leads her family through a hidden passage to the room where his chained skeleton remains.

Background and Cause

Sir Simon admits that he killed his wife, while trying to dismiss the murder as a private family matter. Virginia answers that killing anyone is wrong. His account supplies a petty domestic grievance as context: he complains that his wife did not properly starch his ruffs and knew nothing about cookery, recalling in particular a buck he had shot in Hogley Woods and her way of having it served. He concedes that the matter is over, but objects that her brothers were not kind to starve him to death, even though he had killed her.

Imprisonment and Death

The later discovery gives physical form to Sir Simon’s account. Behind an opening in the wainscoting, a narrow secret corridor leads to a great oak door studded with rusty nails. Beyond it lies a low, vaulted room with a tiny grated window. An iron ring is embedded in the wall, and a gaunt skeleton is chained to it, stretched across the stone floor. A trencher and ewer have been placed just beyond its reach; the ewer bears green mould inside, while the trencher holds only dust. The objects make visible the deprivation Sir Simon described: he was confined without access to the food or water set near him.

Discovery and Aftermath

After Virginia returns to her family, she says that Sir Simon is dead, that he had been wicked but was sorry for what he had done, and that he gave her a box of jewels before he died. She leads the family to the secret chamber, with Washington carrying a candle. Virginia kneels beside the skeleton and prays silently as the others witness the tragedy whose secret has been disclosed. The discovery turns a story about a ghost into knowledge of the human death behind it: Sir Simon’s confinement and starvation were not merely part of his haunting, but its hidden cause and history.

Narrative Significance

The chamber’s barred window, chain, and unreachable provisions make the family’s punishment concrete without changing the fact of Sir Simon’s own crime. His murder of his wife and the brothers’ lethal retaliation stand together in Virginia’s account of a wicked man who became sorry. The revelation also changes the meaning of the skeleton: what first appears as a frightening remnant is evidence of an imprisonment that explains why Sir Simon remains bound to the house.