Count Godensky hates me, because I couldn't and wouldn't love him, and he hates you because he thinks I love you.

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.