During the conversation with Dona Laura, Don Gonzalo gives a romantic description of the silver maiden. Dona Laura realizes that the old man is none other than her former lover Gonzalo. Then, both of them together recount their romantic affair until they come to the end of their story. Don Gonzalo rounds it off telling her that his cousin had to hide for a few days and later to fly. At this point, Dona tells him that he seems to know the story well. Don Gonzalo also tells her the same. Dona Laura tells him that she heard the story from her friend.
Don Gonzalo picks up the same lie and tells her that he heard the story from his cousin. Both of them are now convinced that they were the former lovers of the romantic affair they had just reconstructed. Dona Laura wants to probe further into the affair. Therefore she demands an explanation about Gonzalo’s vanishing from Valencia.
In reply, Don Gonzalo tells her that after staying hidden indoors in Valencia for some time, his cousin went to Seville and then came to Madrid, where he wrote letters to Laura. But, since the letters were intercepted by her parents, she did not get his letters at all and so she did not write back to him. He tells her that Gonzalo, then in despair, believing that he had lost his love forever, joined the army, went to Africa and there is a trench met a glorious death grasping the flag of Spain and whispering the name of his beloved Laura. Immediately, Dona also concocts a story.
She tells him that after waiting for a year for Gonzalo, she went to the beach after sunset one evening. She wrote his name on the sand and then sat down on a rock, her gaze fixed upon the horizon. Then the waves slowly crept up to the rock where the maiden was sitting and the high rising tide rose with a boom and swept her out to sea. Thus ended the sad love affair.
