Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/96

74 trees of a broad and luxuriant park. The rear and most of the side walls had been levelled. There was only left enough to tell us that here had stood one of the most beautiful renaissance châteaus in France.

The officer nodded towards the opposite side of the plaza.

"The chapel," he said.

We gazed with a mounting anger at this jewel which had been shattered with repeated and difficult blows. Through the breaches of the façade gaped out at us a desecrated altar, roofed only by the sky.

"There are no shell holes," the Quaker said. There was a flash of temper across his placid face.

"I am a Quaker, as you know," he went on simply, " but in this place I like to tell you that I have two sons who are Quakers, also, but they are both officers in the British army."

The staff officer smiled, "Perhaps," ” he said, "it is as well you, yourself, are beyond the military age."

It spares my conscience," the Quaker agreed. "What regiments did this?" I asked. Bavarians," the officer answered.

"We had always thought, too, that they were rather kindlier than the Prussians. In the grounds of the château