He therefore wrote to Hero briefly, that he, too, had heard the decree of the goddess of death and was convinced that the inexorable will of Fate stood between them--so he would resign her. With what feelings he did so, he need not explain. As he wished her to regain her peace of mind, he informed her that he could not remain longer in Rome, where he should run the risk of meeting her and thus being reminded afresh of the happiness he had forever lost. He would leave the Capital the following day, without naming the goal of his journey, that not even her thoughts should follow him. Lucius carried out this resolution with the haste of a man who hopes to fly from himself. Accompanied only by a single slave, he rode at dawn northward across the Milvian Bridge--towards Etruria, to pass by Pisae, renowned of old, to Gaul. He had visited none of his numerous friends before leaving except Caius Bononius, to whom he named Massilia[5] as the place where he intended to remain for a few months. He had in that city, in the person of an Arpinatian knight, a host who would receive him with open arms. * * * * * Meantime Caius Bononius was haunted night and day by the feverish desire to see clearly into the tangled web of the events he had experienced. If the marvellous incidents at the Chaldean enchanter’s house had been less numerous; if--with all their apparent reality--they had not borne a certain theatrical impress, Bononius would have been disposed to enter more seriously than ever into the question: Is there really a higher spiritual power that rules the souls of the departed, and are there men who, in consequence of the peculiar nature of their mental faculties, are capable of entering into mutual relations with this higher power? The studies in which Bononius had been engaged contradicted the truth of such a hypothesis; they did not yield the smallest fact that could be construed in favor of it. Yet,--it is the brain most free from prejudice, the brain that has learned how often the impossible proves true, which is therefore the first to be ready to examine impartially what is strange and contradictory instead of unceremoniously refusing it authority with the cheap cleverness of average minds. The true thinker does not reject what lies beyond the pale of experience, but simply what is logically inconceivable. Thus Olbasanus would have obtained undisputed success with Caius Bononius if instead of _three_ amazing miracles he had displayed only one. But the instinct that was instantly aroused when Bononius detected the magician’s triumphant smile gave him no rest; with the zeal of the investigator who hopes to make a discovery that will move the world, the young philosopher strove to find the most natural and simple explanation possible for the bewildering phenomena.... A hundred times he fancied he had grasped the truth by the wing, but it constantly escaped him, and the joyous gleam of hope proved illusive.