During the fatal night when he was taken to see his mother for the last time, the ocean was agitated by movements that to him were full of meaning.

The heaving waters seemed to show that the sea was working intestinally; the swelling waves rolled in and spent themselves with lugubrious noises like the howling of a dog in distress.

Unconsciously, Etienne found himself saying:-- "What does it want of me?
It quivers and moans like a living creature.
My mother has often told me that the ocean was in horrible convulsions on the night when I was born.

Something is about to happen to me." This thought kept him standing before his window with his eyes sometimes on his mother's windows where a faint light trembled, sometimes on the ocean which continued to moan.

Suddenly Beauvouloir knocked on the door of his room, opened it, and showed on his saddened face the reflection of some new misfortune.
"Monseigneur," he said, "Madame la duchesse is in so sad a state that she wishes to see you.