Meanwhile, Diana and Lankester became the sustaining angels of a
stricken house. But not all their tenderness and their pity could, in
the end, do much for the two sufferers they tried to comfort. In
Oliver's case the spinal pain and disorganization increased, the
blindness also; Lady Lucy became steadily feebler and more decrepit. At
last all life was centred on one hope--the coming of a great French
specialist, a disciple of Charcot's, recommended by the English
Ambassador in Paris, who was an old friend and kinsman of Lady Lucy.
But before he arrived Diana took a resolution. She went very early one
morning to see Sir James Chide. He was afterward closeted with Lady
Lucy, and he went up to town the following day on Diana's business. The
upshot of it all was that on the morning of New Year's Eve a marriage
was celebrated in Oliver Marsham's room by the Rector of Tallyn and Mr.
Lavery. It was a wedding which, to all who witnessed it, was among the
most heart-rending experiences of life. Oliver, practically blind, could
not see his bride, and only morphia enabled him to go through it. Mrs.
Fotheringham was to have been present; but there was a feminist congress
in Paris, and she was detained at the last moment.
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