See what deceits love sows in honest minds! - Thomas Hardy

To find themselves utterly alone at night where company is desirable and expected makes some people fearful; but a case more trying by far to the nerves is to discover some mysterious companionship when intuition, sensation, memory, analogy, testimony, probability, induction — every kind of evidence in the logician's list — have united to persuade consciousness that it is quite alone.

We are acting by the letter; and 'the letter killeth.

Some folks want their luck buttered.