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As Antonina obeyed him, a fold of the treacherous robe slipped aside, and discovered a part of the frame of the lute. Numerian’s quick eye discovered it immediately. He snatched the instrument from her feeble grasp. His astonishment on beholding it was too great for words, and for an instant he confronted the poor girl, whose pale face looked rigid with terror, in ominous and expressive silence.

‘This thing,’ said he at length, ‘this invention of libertines in my house—in my daughter’s possession!’ and he dashed the lute into fragments on the floor.

For one moment Antonina looked incredulously on the ruins of the beloved companion, which was the centre of all her happiest expectations for future days. Then, as she began to estimate the reality of her deprivation, her eyes lost all their heaven-born brightness, and filled to overflowing with the tears of earth.

‘To your chamber!’ thundered Numerian, as she knelt, sobbing convulsively, over those hapless fragments. ‘To your chamber! Tomorrow shall bring this mystery of iniquity to light!’