“There is an entity that comes to me in my dreams,” confessed as matter-of-factly as he might report on a delivery of fresh towels to the baths, Richard adds, by necessity: “Less often, now.”

His affect hasn’t changed with the subject any more than it has with her settling in, tattered and listless under his blanket.

“I thought for a time it might be my god working to reach me through the veil.”