The telegraph receiver clicks. ALICE flies up.
ALICE. [Screams] Now ruin is overtaking us! [To the CAPTAIN] Don't listen!
CAPTAIN. [Quietly] I am not going to listen, dear child—just calm yourself!
ALICE. [Standing by the instrument, raises herself on tiptoe in order to look out through the window] Don't listen! Don't listen!
CAPTAIN. [Holding his hands over his ears] Lisa, child, I am stopping up my ears.
ALICE. [On her knees, with lifted hands] God, help us! The squad is coming—[Weeping and sobbing] God in heaven!
She appears to be moving her lips as if in silent prayer.
The telegraph receiver continues to click for a while and a long white strip of paper seems to crawl out of the instrument. Then complete silence prevails once more.
ALICE. [Rises, tears off the paper strip, and reads it in silence. Then she turns her eyes upward for a moment. Goes over to the CAPTAIN and kisses him on the forehead] That is over now! It was nothing!
Sits down in the other chair, puts her handkerchief to her face, and breaks into a violent spell of weeping.
CAPTAIN. What kind of secrets are these?