It was around midnight when I wakened. I lay listening to the beat of the storm which rattled the windows, swished in the maples, and moaned in the giant spruce. Then I heard the sound that had awakened me. A dog howled, close beside the house.

A dog howling in the night ... is enough to scare the sense right out of me. It's a primitive sound, a wail right out of the wilderness. I lay and listened and hoped it wouldn't waken my wife. Then I heard a sharp intake of breath and she asked in a tense whisper, "What's that?"

"The wind," I suggested, hoping the dog wouldn't howl again. But it did.

"It's a dog," she said, "or a wolf."

"A dog, just a dog," I said.

Q. Underline a sentence which shows that the tone of the author's marriage is one of care and protection.