ks
after Christmas, I was lying half asleep here, and the drum was hanging
on the wall, when suddenly I heard it beaten; at first, low and slowly,
then faster and louder, until its rolling filled the house. In the
middle of the night, I heard it again. I did not dare to tell anybody
about it, but I have heard it every night ever since.'

"He paused and looked anxiously in my face. 'Sometimes,' he continued,
'it is played softly, sometimes loudly, but always quickening to a
long-roll, so loud and alarming that I have looked to see people coming
into my room to ask what was the matter. But I think, Doctor,--I think,'
he repeated slowly, looking up with painful interest into my face, 'that
no one hears it but myself.'

"I thought so, too, but I asked him if he had heard it at any other
time.

"'Once or twice in the daytime,' he replied, 'when I have been reading
or writing; then very loudly, as though it were angry, and tried in that
way to attract my attention away from my books.'

"I looked into his face, and placed my hand upon his pulse. His eyes
were very bright, and his pulse a little flurried and quick. I then
tried to explain to him that he was very weak, and that his senses were
very acute, as most weak people's are; and how that when he read,
or grew interested and excited, or when he was tired at night, the
throbbing of a big artery made the beating sound he heard. He listened
to me with a sad smile of unbelief, but thanked me, and in a little
while I went away. But as I was going down stairs, I met the Professor.
I gave him my opinion of the case,--well, no matter what it was.

"'He wants fresh air and exercise,' said the Professor, 'and some
practical experience of life, sir?' The Professor was not a bad man, but
he was a little worried and impatient, and thought--as clever people are
apt to think--that things which he didn't understand were either silly
or improper.

"I left the city that very day, and in the excitement of battle-fields
and hospitals, I forgot all about little Rupert, nor did I hear of him
again, until one day, meeting an old classmate in the army, who had
known the Professor, he told me that Rupert had become quite insane, and
that in one of his paroxysms he had escaped from the house, and as he
had never been found, it was feared that he had fallen in the river and
was drowned. I was terribly shocked for the moment, as you may imagine;
but, dear me, I was living just then among scene