'But what affects you ?' he added, noticing her confusion.
'You tremble; your colour comes and goes; your lips quiver.

Give me your hand!' 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.