A few hours before, after she had walked back out into the rain, Hugo had stared fixedly at the drips on the mat and at the streaming window of the door, much as a dog stares after its departing human. Now Hugo flipped the lamp off, closed the book, and set it gently upon his heart. Perhaps it was dangerous to love as a dog loves. To love with canine devotion was to live in a state of miserable exhilaration, to exist on a knife-thin edge of joy.
