In the stage play Love from a Stranger, Nigel Lawrence is the fiancé of Cecily Harrington. He has recently returned from Sudan with a promotion and a better paying position and expects to marry Cecily soon. However Cecily breaks off the engagement suddenly after meeting a stranger Bruce Lovell. At first Nigel thinks it is because he had been impatient with Cecily when she had written earlier to postponed the wedding for a while because she wanted to enjoy her new found freedom after winning a sum of money, but he later meets Cecily who explains that it wasn't the cause.
The character of Nigel Lawrence is partly a rewriting of the character Dick Windyford from the short story Philomel Cottage, from which the play is adapted. Nigel has roughly the same role as in the original story.