money..."

"No, Sonia," he broke in hurriedly, "that money was not it. Don't worry
yourself! That money my mother sent me and it came when I was ill, the
day I gave it to you.... Razumihin saw it... he received it for me....
That money was mine--my own."

Sonia listened to him in bewilderment and did her utmost to comprehend.

"And _that_ money.... I don't even know really whether there was any
money," he added softly, as though reflecting. "I took a purse off her
neck, made of chamois leather... a purse stuffed full of something...
but I didn't look in it; I suppose I hadn't time.... And the
things--chains and trinkets--I buried under a stone with the purse next
morning in a yard off the V---- Prospect. They are all there now...."

Sonia strained every nerve to listen.

"Then why... why, you said you did it to rob, but you took nothing?" she
asked quickly, catching at a straw.

"I don't know.... I haven't yet decided whether to take that money or
not," he said, musing again; and, seeming to wake up with a start, he
gave a brief ironical smile. "Ach, what silly stuff I am talking, eh?"

The thought flashed through Sonia's mind, wasn't he mad? But she
dismissed it at once. "No, it was something else." She could make
nothing of it, nothing.

"Do you know, Sonia," he said suddenly with conviction, "let me tell
you: if I'd simply killed because I was hungry," laying stress on
every word and looking enigmatically but sincerely at her, "I should
be _happy_ now. You must believe that! What would it matter to you," he
cried a moment later with a sort of despair, "what would it matter to
you if I were to confess that I did wrong? What do you gain by such
a stupid triumph over me? Ah, Sonia, was it for that I've come to you
to-day?"

Again Sonia tried to say something, but did not speak.

"I asked you to go with me yesterday because you are all I have left."

"Go where?" asked Sonia timidly.

"Not to steal and not to murder, don't be anxious," he smiled bitterly.
"We are so different.... And you know, Sonia, it's only now, only this
moment that I understand _where_ I asked you to go with me yesterday!
Yesterday when I said it I did not know where. I asked you for one
thing, I came to you for one thing--not to leave me. You won't leave me,
Sonia?"

She squeezed his hand.

"And why, why did I tell her? Why did I let her know?" he cried a minute
later in despair, looking with infinite anguish at her. "Here you expe