Valerie returns home fainted; the royal physician reveals she is anemic, has kidney damage, and has suffered multiple miscarriages — injuries blamed for her collapse and likely to impair future fertility. Her father angrily accuses her of promiscuity and of bearing a child conceived in Northo. Siblings and attendants try to soften the attack, but Valerie explodes, accusing her parents of sending her to Northo to be a slave and exposing their responsibility. The medical verdict shifts the argument into a moral crisis, and Valerie’s health and the family’s blame remain unresolved.