What shocked Michael was his discovering, not that he funked it now, which was natural, almost permissible, but that he had funked it all the time.  He could see now that, since the War began, he had been struggling to keep out of it.  His mind had fought every suggestion that he should go in.  It had run to cover, like a mad, frightened animal before the thoughts that hunted it down.  Funk, pure funk, had been at the bottom of all he had said and thought and done since August, nineteen-fourteen; his attitude to the War, his opinion of the Allies, and of the Government and of its conduct of the War, all his wretched criticisms and disparagements—­what had they been but the very subterfuges of funk?

His mother had known it; his father had known it; and Dorothy and John.  It was not conceivable that Nicky did not know it.

That was what had made the horror of the empty space that separated them.

Lawrence Stephen had certainly known it.

He could not understand his not knowing it himself, not seeing that he struggled.  Yet he must have seen that Nicky’s death would end it.  Anyhow, it was ended; if not last night, then this morning when he posted the letter.

But he was no longer appeased by this certainty of his.  He was going out all right.  But merely going out was not enough.  What counted was the state of mind in which you went.  Lawrence had said, “Victory—­Victory is a state of mind.”

Well—­it was a state that came naturally to Nicky, and did not come naturally to him.  It was all very well for Nicky:  he had wanted to go.  He had gone out victorious before victory.  Michael would go beaten before defeat.

He thought:  “If this is volunteering, give me compulsion.”  All the same he was going.

All morning and afternoon, as he walked and walked, his thoughts went the same round.  And in the evening they began again, but on a new track.  He thought:  “It’s all very well to say I’m going; but how can I go?” He had Lawrence Stephen’s work to do; Lawrence’s Life and Letters were in his hands.  How could he possibly go and leave Lawrence dead and forgotten?  This view seemed to him to be sanity and common sense.

As his mind darted up this turning it was driven back.  He saw Lawrence Stephen smiling at him as he had smiled at him when Reveillaud died.  Lawrence would have wanted him to go more than anything.  He would have chosen to be dead and forgotten rather than keep him.

At night these thoughts left him.  He began to think of Nicky and of his people.  His father and mother would never be happy again.  Nicky had been more to them than he was, or even John.  He had been more to Dorothy.  It was hard on Dorothy to lose Nicky and Drayton too.

He thought of Nicky and Veronica.  Poor little Ronny, what would she do without Nicky?  He thought of Veronica, sitting silent in the train, and looking at him with her startling look of spiritual maturity.  He thought of Veronica singing to him over and over again: