Dona Laura tells Don Gonzalo that her friend had written to her that she had awaited news of Gonzalo for nearly a year. Later one afternoon, just at sunset, as the first stars were appearing she left her house and went to the beach where her beloved had risked his life. She wrote his name on the sand and then sat down upon a rock, her gaze fixed upon the horizon. The waves murmured their eternal threnody and slowly crept up to the rock where the maiden sat. The tide rose with a boom and swept her out to sea.
