Then she walked out of
the death-chamber, erect,--still the Queen, wearing "sorrow's crown of
sorrow," and went to her chamber, and shut herself in--her soul alone
with God, her heart alone for evermore.
Ah, we may not doubt that this royal being, in whose veins beats the
blood of a long, long race of Kings, was brought low enough then,--to her
knees, to her face,
"_For grief is proud and makes his owner stoop_."
So absorbing and unwavering had been the love of the Queen for her
husband, who to her, was "nobler than the noblest"; such a proud homage
of the soul had there been--such a dear habit of the heart, in one with
whom habit counted for much, that her people were filled with the most
intense anxiety on her behalf. They feared that this cruel stroke which
lopped off the best part of her life, would kill her, or plunge her into
a depth of melancholy, sadder than death. For some time she was not able
to sleep. The thought of that chamber, so lately the scene of all the
anxious activity of the sickroom, wherein softly moved troubled
physicians and nurses, tearful attendants and awe-struck children, but
where now there were shadowed lights, and solemn silence, and where lay
that beautiful, marble-like shape, so familiar, yet so strange--that
_something_ which was not _he_, yet was inexpressibly dear, kept her
awake, face to face with her sorrow,--and when at last, the bulletin from
Windsor announced, "The Queen has had some hours' sleep," her people all
in mourning as they were, felt like ringing joy-bells.
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