He went out to France three weeks before Nicholas.
She had worn herself out with wondering when he would be sent, till she, too, was in a hurry for him to go and end it. Now that he had gone she felt nothing but a clean and sane relief that was a sort of peace. She told herself that she would rather he were killed soon than that she should be tortured any longer with suspense.
"If I saw his name in the lists this morning I shouldn't mind. That would end it."
And she sent her servant to the stationer's to stop the papers for fear lest she should see his name in the lists.
But Lawrence spared her. He was wounded in his first engagement, and died of his wounds in a hospital at Dunkirk.
The Red Cross woman who nursed him wrote to Vera an hour before he died. She gave details and a message.
"7.30. I'm writing now from his dictation. He says you're to forgive him and not to be too sorry, because it was what he thought it would be (he means the fighting) only much more so--all except this last bit.
"He wants you to tell Michael and Dicky?--Nicky?--that. He says: 'It's odd I should be first when he got the start of me.'
"(I think he means you're to forgive him for leaving you to go to the War.)"