ALICE. [Folding the letter] We'll see whether I have guessed it.

CURT. Will you help me then?

ALICE. Yes—but no further than my own interests permit. My own—that is my children's.

CURT. I understand that! Do you hear how silent everything is—here on land, out on the sea, everywhere?

ALICE. But behind the silence I hear voices—mutterings, cries!

CURT. Hush! I hear something, too—no, it was only the gulls.

ALICE. But I hear something else! And now I am going to the post-office—with this letter!

Curtain.

Same stage setting. ALLAN is sitting at the writing-table studying. JUDITH is standing in the doorway. She wears a tennis hat and carries the handle-bars of a bicycle in one hand.