"It's Sally. The new girl. I'm afraid she's run off."
"Run off?" Tamara asked, taken aback. But then logic reinterpreted the words and she shook her head. "Let me guess. She went into the library?"
Martha nodded. "I instructed her, as I do all the new staff members, that only I am to clean the library. Still, it does seem that her curiosity got the better of her."
"And she saw Byron?"
Martha raised her chin and stood a bit straighter, as though unwilling to concede there was anything odd about the conversation. "Indeed," she replied. "The girl muttered something about a ghost and poetry, and added that no living man ever spoke to her in a manner so boldly lascivious."
Tamara rose from her chair and went to the window, letting the sun warm her, seep down into her bones. There was a chill in her always,
