VI

the first murderer? And why not? Had not he, like Cain, killed a man? and in the last sermon he had heard at Oigny had not the preacher said that all men were brothers? Thibault felt wild with misgivings; what had so terrified Agnelette? That he must find out without delay. At first he thought he would go into the town of Bourg-Fontaine and look at himself in a glass. But then, supposing the fatal mark was upon him, and others, besides Agnelette, were to see it! No, he must think of some other way of finding out. He could, of course, pull his hat over his brow, and run back to Oigny, where he had a fragment of mirror in which he could see himself; but Oigny was a long way off. Then he remembered that only a few paces from where he stood, there was a spring as transparent as crystal, which fed the pond near Baisemont, and those at Bourg; he would be able to see himself in that as clearly as in the finest mirror from Saint-Gobain. So Thibault went to the side of the stream and, kneeling down, looked at himself. He saw the same eyes, the same nose, and the same mouth, and not even the slightest little mark upon the forehead⁠—he drew a breath of relief. But still, there must have been something. Agnelette had certainly not taken fright as she had, for nothing. Thibault bent over closer to the crystal water; and now he saw there was something bright that shone amid the dark curls on his head and fell over his forehead. He leaned closer still⁠—it was a red hair. A red hair, but of a most peculiar red⁠—not sandy coloured or carrotty; neither of a light shade nor a dark; but a red of the colour of blood, with a brightness of the most vivid flame. Without stopping to consider how a hair of such a phenomenal colour could possibly have grown there, he began trying to pull it out. He drew forward the curl where gleamed the terrible red hair, that it might hang over the water, and then taking hold of it carefully between his finger and thumb gave it a violent pull; but the hair refused to come away. Thinking that he had not got sufficient hold of it, he tried another way, winding the hair round his finger and again giving it a vigorous jerk⁠—the hair cut into his fingers but remained as firmly rooted as ever. Thibault then turned it round two of his fingers and pulled