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"But I didn't know he was married," murmured Patricia to the St. Bernard, after Gareth had gone.
Still, now that she had placed him in the middle of her world, and in a royal ecstasy of sacrifice offered up to him her previous middle-of-the-world, the very book of her heart -- it were folly now to make another sacrifice of the altar itself. Patricia had been sincere in her half-laughing remark to Hetty several years ago, that she could not be bothered to give up the little things of life; but that one day when she found someone worth while, she would revel in the supreme indulgence of yielding up her all; flinging gift after gift upon the bonfire, to feed it: her lesser loves, her friends, her memories, the world's opinion of her, her tangible possessions, her individuality even.