"One week ago," replied Mme. d'Imrahil. "He had been suffering for some days, indeed ever since Valartine and your new wife came to visit, but the idea of seeing our Valartine married rendered him courageous, and he was determined to leave. Then, six leagues from Annuminas, he was taken with a sleep that seemed deeper than natural, deeper than the sleep of Dildon after he had sampled the opium of Ungolianne; I awakened him and talked to him a bit about when Trolquien celebrated Noel; he smiled, and did not speak again."
Valartine returned from the ball chez Mme. de Pérégrin. Mute caresses, painful swelling of the heart, broken sighs, burning tears – voilà the only details recountable from that interview, or so the loremasters tell us. Worn out with grief, Mme. d'Imrahil made her way to bed, leaning on Valartine.
The next morning, Mme. d'Imrahil called Villefaramir and Valartine to her bedside and said: "I have little time left to live; let Valartine's marriage to my third-cousin twice-removed, Arafrantz d'Imrahil, be hastened, so that her grandmother at least may be present at it." Valartine said nothing, but remembered Morrie's horrible promise that he would fall upon his sword like Turin, though the sword of Morrie could not quote the epigrams of Jean-Georges Doubiat-Buche de Jerc, should Valartine marry another.
