The lodge was nothing more than a tumbled pile of broken bricks, but, by some odd chance, the Chateau itself had never suffered a direct hit. In front of the big white house there had once been an asphalt tennis court--there was now a plain pitted at every few yards by huge shell holes. The summer-house at the edge of the wood--once the scene of delightful little flirtations in between the games of tennis--was now a weird wreck, consisting of three tottering walls and a broken seat. Oddest of all, there lay near the white marble steps an old, tyreless De Dion motor-car. I have often wondered what the history of that battered thing could be. One can almost see the owner packing herself in it with her most precious belongings, to flee from the oncoming Germans. The engine refuses to start, there is no time for repairs, there is the hurried flight on foot, and the car is left to the mercy of the invading troops. Perhaps, again, it belonged to the staff of some army, and was left at the Chateau when it had run its last possible mile. At all events, there it stood, half-way between Ypres and the Germans, with everything of any possible value stripped off it as thoroughly as though it had been left to the white ants. By the side of the tennis court, where had once been flower beds, there was now a row of little, rough wooden crosses, and here and there the narcissi and daffodils had sprung up. What a strange little cemetery! Here a khaki cap and a bunch of dead flowers, there a cross erected to "An unknown British hero, found near Verbrandenmolen and buried here on March 3rd, 1915," there an empty shell case balanced at a comical angle on a grave, and everywhere between the mounds waved the flowers in the fresh breeze of the morning, while away in the distance loomed the tower of the Cloth Hall of Ypres, like a gigantic arm pointing one finger up to heaven. The Chateau itself, I have said, had never had a direct hit; but do you think the hand of war had passed it by, and that the little old lady would find in it something of home? Every window on the ground floor had been choked by sandbags, and no glass remained in those upstairs. In a room that had once been a kitchen and was now labelled in chalk "Officers' Mess" were an old bedstead, two mattresses, a wooden table, and three rickety chairs; but for these, and a piano in the dining-room upstairs, the house was absolutely devoid of furniture. Even the piano, which must have twanged out the tunes of at least three nations since the war began, had sacrificed its cover for firewood.