She advanced with the greatest caution (as if fearful of being overheard) until she gained the part of the floor still strewn with the ruins of the broken lute.

Here she knelt down, and pressed each fragment that lay before her separately to her lips.

Then hurriedly concealing a single piece in her bosom, she arose and stole quickly away in the direction by which she had come.
'Be patient till the dawn,' muttered her faithless guardian, gazing after her from his concealment as she disappeared; 'it will bring to thy lute a restorer, and to Ulpius an ally!'.