tax himself severely for
his folly. Was he not already tortured with pain too poignant to be
endured? Why rivet more tightly the fetters that goaded him?

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