He raises her gently, but firmly.
"You need not look," he says, as her terrified eyes stare out at the moonlit scene, white and ghostly. "Yesterday he wrote to the woman Paulina, making all arrangements for their flight this night. She dropped the letter in the jungle, from a satchel full of shot. It is here."
He holds out the torn envelope, with its broken seal and deadly intelligence.
Eleanor takes it mechanically—as yet she cannot believe—while the sight of the familiar handwriting sends the hot blood coursing freely once more through her brain.
She draws the closely-worded sheet from its resting-place and crosses to the light to scan the text.
Philip watches her face as it bends over the letter. He has struck a match and holds it up to illuminate that fatal message.
Every vestige of life seems to fly from her features. The page swims before her tailing sight, the words become crossed and blurred. She has read enough!
Then she remembers Paulina's fingers have touched this paper, perhaps her lips, and it flutters from Eleanor's hands at the thought, falling silently between her and Philip.
"Now," he cries, "can you grasp my mission? Do you guess why I am here? There was no longer any cause for him to live." Philip throws back his coat, and she sees the shirt beneath it is splashed with blood.