He had fled once and for all from Circe's magic, vowing that never again should the sorceress work her charm upon him; and that vow he intended to keep. Nevertheless, it did not prevent him from stealing an occasional peep at the enchantress, if only to assure himself that her spell was as potent and deadly as he had supposed it. Surely, if he did not consort with her, looking could do no harm. Therefore he indulged his fancy, watching Lucy whenever she was within sight and each time becoming more helplessly entangled in her fascinations, until any escape from the thralldom of her beauty became impossible. His days were a cycle of tantalizing visions which ceased only with the coming of darkness; and when with the night he would have found release from their misery, it was only to discover that night an endless stretch of hours that intervened betwixt him and the moment when the visions might return again. Poor Martin! He endured a hell of suffering during those radiant summer days. He was melancholy, ecstatic, irritable by turns, ascending to the heights and plunging into the depths with an abruptness and unaccountability that was not only enigmatic to himself but to every one else with whom he came in contact. He kept Mary in a ferment of excitement trying to devise remedies for his successive ills. One day she would be sure he needed a tonic to dispel his listlessness and with infinite pains would brew the necessary ingredients together; but before the draught could be cooled and administered, Martin had rebounded to an unheard-of vitality. Ah, she would reason, it must be his appetite that was at the bottom of the trouble. She must stimulate his desire for food. No sooner, however, was her concoction of herbs simmering on the stove than her erratic patient was devouring everything within sight with the zest of a cannibal. So it went, the affliction which oppressed him one day giving place to a new collection of symptoms on the morrow. "I'd have Doctor Marsh to him if I had any opinion of the man," remarked Mary one night. "But I ain't ever been able to muster up my respect for that critter's principles since he left that medicine for 'Liza marked _'Keep in a Dark Place.'_ That was enough to shake my confidence in him forever. It was so under-handed. I'd rather had 'Liza sick for the rest of her life than that she should 'a' been dosed up on some stuff we had to keep hidden away lest somebody see it. If he was ashamed of the medicine, or it was anything we'd hadn't ought to had, he shouldn't 'a' given it to us. I never said nothin' to nobody 'bout it, but I poured the whole bottleful down the sink, and told Doctor Marsh that he needn't come again. He pretended he couldn't see why, but I guess he understood, an' I hope the lesson did him good," concluded Mary with righteous zeal. "So that was the reason Doctor Marsh stopped comin'!" Jane exclaimed. "I always wondered. You never told me that before."