Away Went Love by Mary Burchell

shocked, considering his rather matter-of-fact recital of what had so profoundly shocked her.
    “Of course—if it would realize anything like enough.”
    “But it’s your home!”
    “What does that matter? Material things don’t matter in a crisis like this. Besides, this wouldn’t be my home after we were married, would it?”
    Afterwards, she was to remember that he looked blank and put out for a moment, at this point.
    “But of course it wouldn’t realize anything like enough,” Hope went on, still too intent on her calculations to notice his slight silence. “And I haven’t any really valuable jewellery—nothing that would raise more than thirty or forty pounds .
    “Hope, I hate to hear you talking of selling your possessions like this,” he exclaimed almost violently. “Tell me more about—about what your father left. Isn’t there anything coming to you?”
    “Very little, if anything at all. Besides, Errol Tamberly’s taken on the education and maintenance of the twins, and if there were anything, it ought by rights to go towards their expenses.”
    “Good heavens, he wouldn’t expect that, would he?” Richard exclaimed.
    “I don’t know if it’s what he would expect. It’s what I should expect,” Hope said a little crisply. “I don’t feel justified in taking money from Errol Tamberly if there is any of our own available.”
    “No. No, of course not,” Richard agreed. “I only meant — Well, isn’t he the son of old Augustus Tamberly?”
    “I believe so.”
    “Then he must be a pretty rich man himself. The old bounder left something like a hundred thousand.”
    “Possibly so,” Hope admitted. “In fact—yes, of course, they must be very well off,” she added, remembering the casual expensiveness of the Tamberly home. “But, anyway, that’s beside the point.”
    “But—is it, exactly?” Richard said slowly, as though a new thought had struck him.
    “Is it what?”
    “Is it exactly beside the point that Tamberly’s a rich man? It’s a desperate matter, this five hundred, Hope. If we can’t raise it on—on anything we’ve got, don’t we have to consider if there’s anyone we know who would lend it?”
    “Lend—?” Hope looked back at Richard in uneasy astonishment. “But you can’t suppose that Errol Tamberly would lend you five hundred pounds, Richard! He’s not at all that sort of man.”
    “No—not lend it to me. Of course he wouldn’t do that. He doesn’t even know me. But—to you, Hope. Is there any possibility that he would lend you money if he knew you were in great trouble?”
    “Oh, I couldn’t,” Hope cried in quick protest. “I—I don’t think I could ask him. At least,” she amended, at the change in Richard’s expression, “at least, only as the very last resort.”
    “I only meant as a last resort,” Richard assured her unhappily. “But, if he’s undertaken to look after the twins, surely he must have some sense of responsibility towards you too?”
    Hope didn’t answer that directly. She was remembering how very deeply she had resented such a suggestion from Dr. Tamberly himself. It was no less disagreeable now that Richard offered it as a reason for begging an enormous favor from him.
    “Let’s try to think if there’s any other way,” she urged anxiously.
    So they both thought while two or three heavy minutes ticked away. Once more Hope reckoned up in her mind the possible value of her personal possessions. Even at most favorable rates they would not realize anything like the sum needed, and—since any sale would have to be a hurried one—it was unlikely that she would even be able to get good terms.
    Richard was right in one thing—they would have to call in the assistance of someone else. And the choice was strictly—horribly—limited.
    “There—there isn’t anybody to whom you could apply, is there?” she suggested tentatively, remembering, even as she spoke, that he had described her, herself, as his only