“Is it possible that he has nothing but cowardice and fear of death to make him live?” she thought at last in despair.

Meanwhile the sun was setting. Sonia was standing in dejection, looking intently out of the window, but from it she could see nothing but the unwhitewashed blank wall of the next house. At last when she began to feel sure of his death — he walked into the room.

She gave a cry of joy, but looking carefully into his face she turned pale.

“Yes,” said Raskolnikov, smiling. “I have come for your cross, Sonia. It was you told me to go to the cross-roads; why is it you are frightened now it’s come to that?”

Sonia gazed at him astonished. His tone seemed strange