Upon reaching the vicinity of the spring in the ledges, Michaelovitz proposed that they rest for a little and listen to a story which Eyllen had to relate to them, but (with a woman's usual perverseness) when they were comfortably seated upon the grass she refused to begin it. Would she finish if her father began it? they asked.
No, she would not even promise to finish. If her father wished the story to be told, then he must tell it, she declared between laughing and blushing.
The old man needed no urging. He proceeded to relate the story of the discovery of her gold ledges. Of her patiently locating the ledges in the face of the fact that her strange electric instinct for minerals gave her real suffering; and of her taking him into her secret; not omitting to tell of the water witch, the talisman, and the dream, as well as her wish that Shismakoff be kept in ignorance to the last moment. It was now that Michaelovitz forced his daughter to regret that she had not herself told the tale.
He did not spare her blushes. On the contrary he bore down upon the finale of the narrative with all the vigor of a surgeon performing a serious duty, adding that she had had her wishes in the matter gratified, and she ought to be satisfied that their listener was a genuine lover, and not one seeking a wife for her possessions.
At this juncture Eyllen's poor cheeks could blush no longer. Her eyes were wet, but her lips were smiling; and Michaelovitz betook himself to the path which led to the spring, thus giving the lovers an opportunity to be alone.
Shismakoff was the first to speak.
"So this is the little one who wears the talisman," he laughed. "But it has no power to protect you from witchcraft, as I can honestly testify. See! Here in me is the proof of my story. Have you not bewitched me?" his strong arms moving tenderly around the girl's little jacket, while he covered her lips with kisses.
"Give the talisman to me, darling, that I may wear it until your love shall be as strong for me as is my own for Eyllen!"
Then the girl, thinking him in earnest, handed it to her lover who hung it about his neck beneath his waistcoat next to his heart. So the lovers had forgotten the ledges and the man among them, and thought only of their love and each other; the rocks, gold-laden though they were, as well as everything else, being then of secondary importance.
