That very night, the Marquis de Saint-Méran's wife becomes very, very sick.
The following morning, she knows she is going to die.
Also, in the middle of the night, she saw someone or something in white fiddle with the glass next to her bed.
On her deathbed, Madame de Saint-Méran is even more eager to get her granddaughter, Valentine, hitched. She wants Franz D'Epinay to come back and marry Valentine.
Valentine really wants to tell her grandmother that she's in love with someone else (Max Morrel), but she knows that her grandmother wouldn't approve of him as a husband (he's poor).