Now Barres was by this time content with his triumph, and he put his hand to the old man's ear and shouted, "Because your day is past--you are down, you and all your gang. You silenced me at the Riding School meeting three months ago, but then you had Gaston Cremieux to help you. You had better go home. I shall see to it that you do go home, and let not Aramon see your face again. Keep on the farther side of the Durance and no man shall meddle with you. But from this day forth take notice that Aramon means to do without you!" He beckoned a few determined-looking fellows from the crowd, each armed with a rifle and cartridge-belt. A few instructions, a determined push through the crowd which divided to right and left, shouting hateful words all the time he was passing, and Pere Felix found himself thrust ignominiously out of the northern gate of Aramon. His captors had treated him with a certain hasty roughness, but had up till now refrained from insult. Now they tore the red scarf of office from about his body and trampled it in the dust. The rule of the Twenty was over in Aramon. Slowly and mournfully Pere Felix took the way under the beautiful trees of the water road toward the Durance. He did not see where he was going. His foot caught more than once in twisted roots from which the soil had been washed away by the winter floods. Under the willows and among the glimmering poplars shedding blue and gold, he drew nearer the broken pier and the little height of sandy dune from which he could see the blue reek curl upward from the kitchen chimney of the restaurant of the Sambre-et-Meuse. When he saw it his heart gave a sudden throb, as if he had recognised suddenly the face of a friend unseen and neglected for years. "This is mine," he muttered, "and what have I been caring for? The popular applause! Mariana told me they would turn upon me and kick me at the last. Then perhaps I would remember that I had a home. They trampled my red sash in the dust. It was they who gave it to me--it was their own authority vested in me. They ought to have remembered!" There were tears in the eyes of Pere Felix. The tribune of the people could not all at once bring himself to accept a final defeat. But as he looked a different feeling gathered warm about his heart. Yonder was Jeanne bringing back a boat-load of firewood gathered from the flood mark. How tall she was, and how beautiful! He had not noticed these things before. How nobly and regularly she stood in the stern and poled the boat with the current--a splash or two and she was safe within the little backwater. Beyond was Mariana, busy with her fowls, scattering feed for them with the shrill _chook_--_chook-chookychooks_ used on such occasions by the hen-wives of all nations. Pere Felix could see the birds running stumblingly with wings outspread to the feast. Mariana turned, glanced across the water, put on her spectacles, and called aloud to Jeanne without any surprise.