He--" I paused for a second. A wild
thought had flashed like the light of a beacon in my brain. If I could
say something now which, when the blow fell--if it did fall--might come
back to Raoul's mind and convince him instantly that it was Godensky,
not I, who had stolen the treaty and broken him! If I could make him
believe the whole thing a monstrous plot of Godensky's to revenge
himself on a woman who'd refused him, by cleverly implicating her in her
lover's ruin, by throwing guilt upon her while she was, in reality,
innocent! If I could suggest that to Raoul now, while his ears were
open, I might hold his love against the world, no matter what happened
afterward.
It was a mad idea and a wicked one, perhaps; but I was at my wits' end
and desperate. Though not guilty of this one crime which I would shift
upon his shoulders if I could, as a means of escaping from the trap he'd
helped to set, Godensky was capable of it, and guilty of others, I was
sure, which had never been brought home to him. I believed that he, too,
was a spy, just as I was; and far worse, because if he were one he
betrayed his own country, while I never had done that, never would.
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