And she signed herself, not as in her last letters with her full name, but as in the first she had written him--Baroness de Sallach Carlsberg. Hautefeuille read and re-read these cold, dry lines. It was evident that the young woman had learned of his purchase at Monte Carlo, and all the agony of his remorse revealed itself in these words, which he cried aloud as he entered his room:-- "She knows! I am lost!" CHAPTER IV LOVERS' RESOLUTIONS The note which had thus brought Pierre's anxiety to its extreme represented the first act in a plan invented by Madame Brion to put an immediate and irreparable end to a sentiment for which her friendly insight had led her to predict frightful suffering, a possible tragedy, a certain catastrophe. After Madame de Carlsberg's sudden and passionate confidences, she had said to herself that if she did not succeed in immediately separating these two beings, drawn to each other by such an instinctive attraction, the young man would not be slow to discover the sentiment he inspired in the woman he loved. It was only thanks to his remarkable ingenuousness and candor that he had not already discovered it. When he knew the truth, what would happen? Ingenuous and candid though she was herself, Louise Brion could not evade the true answer to this question. As soon as an understanding took place between Hautefeuille and Ely, she would go to the end of her desire. She had too clearly revealed in her confession the indomitable audacity of her character, her need of complying with the demands of her passions. She would become the young man's mistress. Although the conversation of the night before had imposed upon Louise the evidence of faults already committed by her friend, neither her mind nor her heart could entertain the thought of these faults. The mere idea of this liaison filled her with a shudder of fright, almost of horror. All through the night she had tried to think of some way to obtain the only escape she could see for Ely, the voluntary departure of Hautefeuille. Her first thought was to appeal to his delicacy. The portrait Madame de Carlsberg had drawn of him, his interesting face, his frank and honest look, the naïveté of his amorous action in buying the gold box, all revealed an exquisite fineness of nature. If she should write him, bravely, simply, an unsigned letter, speaking of that action, of that purchase which might have been, and no doubt had been, seen by others too? If on this account she should beg him to leave in order to save Madame de Carlsberg from trouble? During her long and feverish insomnia she had tried to formulate this letter, without discovering expressions which satisfied her. It was so difficult to make such a request without letting it signify, "Go, because she loves you!"