Luckily, he is able to speak to the prince, avoiding his entry into the passage and letting Isabella escape.

The peasant accidentally closes the door, locking it and alerting Manfred to his whereabouts. The peasant decides to help Isabella and she finds the trapdoor, making her way into the tunnel. When she reaches the cloister containing the trapdoor, she runs into a peasant whom Manfred had earlier accused of moving the statue's helmet. Nicholas, she decides to hide amongst the nuns working there. Realizing that she can take a subterranean passage to the Church of St. Isabella races through the castle in an attempt to escape. Inevitably, he discovers that this moving picture is the spectre of his grandfather who leads him down the path he must take. She only escapes when Manfred is distracted by a picture on the wall. When he vows to marry her instead, Isabella worries and flees when he tries to force himself upon her. He tells her that he plans to give her a much older, experienced husband, unlike his frail, once-celebrated son. Instead, Manfred calls upon Isabella, the bride of the wedding. Later that day, Manfred's sole daughter and descendant, Matilda, dares to check on her father and she is soon told to leave.

Manfred retires to his room to mourn, instructing that no one enter. No one man could have performed the murder on his own. It is later revealed that the murder weapon, an obscurely large helmet taken from the statue of a past prince, was taken from its resting place. An ancient prophecy foreshadows the fact that Manfred's lineage may lose the throne in Otranto, and the death of his treasured son on this day shows his true feelings in the matter. While many of the guests are already in the church waiting for the ceremony to begin, a villager informs the party that Conrad has been killed in the most peculiar way: crushed to death under an obscurely large helmet covered in black plumes. The tale opens on the wedding day of Conrad, the prized son of Manfred, who would be marrying a princess, Isabella.

The castle of otranto sparknotes