Her reason told her to submit to the inevitable.

Her heart cried out against it.

And so she continued to finger the hilt of the little dagger, and look at its keen poison-smeared edge.
But one day at the end of this dreary period Agias appeared before his mistress with a smiling face.
"Don't raise high hopes, my lady, but trust me.

I have struck a path that I'm sure Pratinas will wish I'd never travelled." And that was all he would say, but laid his finger on his lips as though it was a great secret.

When he was gone, for Cornelia the sun shone brighter, and the tinkling of the water in the fountain in the peristylium sounded sweeter than before.