No, no,” howled Shadow. “Do not keep me here!” “Do you not love the boy?” said the voice of the sea. “Love is terrible!” Shadow howled.“I know,” replied the sea.“It is full of hurt.”“It is. But do you not love the boy?” “I do love the boy!” the dog cried.“You cannot leave the boy in this storm, not if you truly love him,” she said.

This dog, who shall be under your care, belongs to the best of humankind’s creation. For man transformed that which he feared into something which could love him. The dog, Theo, is the great witness to the one truth. There is but the one truth. Four words like my tale. The truth is this: Love triumphs over fear.

Take heart. Love has overcome the wild world. Dogs were once wolves.

The dog is a result of fear transformed into love.

They would be a duet. They would be happy. What is happy, anyways?

Somehow, the days of summer with their glimmering enchantment of dancing ladybugs and sailing clouds had faded into grey. Maddie’s heart had somehow faded with it.

Love is the reason why, even in suffering, we smile.

When they would return to one another from their solitariness, they returned gently as dew comes to the morning grass.

There was no necessity for either to have the last word. For the first word became the only word of their romantic conversation.