This is evidently the official letter with reference to his
post--the post that means to him but this one thing: her
possession.
He bursts it open, and in less than two seconds his eye takes in
its news: he has the appointment.
The blood leaps over his face, and an exultant fire runs through
his frame and along his veins.
He replaces the letter quietly in its cover with but the slightest
tremor of his fingers.
Then he gets up from the bedside and stands in the middle of the
room, looking through the sparkling panes.
"I have her!" he is thinking. "Yes, by God! at last I have her!"
The day is glorified; life is transfigured.
Through his whole body mounts that boundless exhilaration of desire
on the point of satisfaction. Not momentary desire, easily and
recently awakened, but the long desire that has been goaded and
baited to fury through weeks and months of repression, and tempered
to a terrible acuteness in pain and suffering, like steel by flame.
And now triumph, and a delight beyond expression, bounds like an
electrified pulse throughout all his strong, vigorous frame.
The lines seem to fade from his face, the mouth relaxes, and then
he laughs, as he makes a step towards the window, flings it open,
and leans out into the keen air.
"At last I can speak out decently. No one could think I cared for
her money, or any of that rot now.
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