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 today?”
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!