Roland Michell is an academic researcher who discovers some important letters written by a famous Victorian poet, Randolph Henry Ash. Ash was believed to have been totally devoted to his wife, but the letters Roland found were written to another unnamed woman, and he decides that the intended recipient was another, less well-known poet, Christabel LaMotte. Roland contacts Maud Bailey, an expert on LaMotte's life and work. Despite her skepticism, the two begin to investigate, and uncover a wealth of information about the affair between the two poets.