The window-panes shook; a big gun went off close to the house. Aurelle went to the window and saw behind a farm, silhouetted in black against the orange twilight of the sky, a yellowish smoke, slowly dispersing. "There’s the old man beginning to strafe again," said the padre. "I don’t like this house." "You will have to put up with it, padre; the Staff captain won’t give us another; he’s a boy who knows his own mind." "Yes," said the colonel, "he is a very nice boy too; he is one of Lord Bamford’s sons." "His father, the old Lord, was a fine rider," said Parker. "His sister," replied the colonel, "married a cousin of Graham, who was a major in our first battalion at the beginning of the War, and is now a brigadier-general." Aurelle, foreseeing that such an interesting subject, so rich in the possibility of unexpected developments, would occupy the entire evening, tried to scribble some verses, still meditating on luck and chance. "Tu l’as dit, ô Pascal, le nez de Cléopâtre, S’il eût été plus court ... nous n’en serions pas là." A new and formidable detonation put the subtle metre of rhyme out of his head; discouraged, he tried another: "Croyez pas que je moralise, Si je vous envoie ces bobards, C’est que notre mess analyse Ce soir la question du hasard..." Another shell fell so close that the colonel got up suddenly. "They are beginning to bombard the château again," he said. "I am going to see where that one fell." Major Parker and the doctor followed him into the street, but Aurelle, who was again rhyming, stayed with the padre, who had just begun the same patience for the fourteenth time that evening. The three officers had gone about a hundred yards when another explosion took place behind them. "That one was not far from the Mess," said the doctor. "I am going to tell Madame to go down into the cellar." He retraced his steps and found a new shell-hole in front of the house. The house seemed all right; through the broken window the doctor saw the padre and called out to him: "A near thing that time, padre. Are you all right? Where is Aurelle?" But the padre did not move: with his head leaning on his arms crossed over the scattered cards, he appeared to be gazing vaguely at the doctor, who entered at a bound and touched the padre on the shoulder. He was dead. A piece of shell had entered his temple, which was bleeding slowly. Aurelle had fallen on the floor. He was unconscious and covered with blood, but the doctor, bending over him, found that he still breathed. As he was unfastening his tunic and shirt, the colonel and Parker arrived with their measured tread and stopped abruptly at the door. "The padre has been killed, sir," said the doctor simply. "Aurelle is hit, too, but I don’t think it is serious. No, it’s his shoulder—nothing much." The colonel groaned sympathetically.