at all would be well? Only two days before the end, which
was seen now to be almost inevitable by everyone about her, she wrote,
full of apparent confidence, to the King of the Belgians: "I do not sit
up with him at night," she said, "as I could be of no use; and there is
nothing to cause alarm." The Princess Alice tried to tell her the truth,
but her hopefulness would not be daunted. On the morning of December
14, Albert, just as she had expected, seemed to be better; perhaps
the crisis was over. But in the course of the day there was a serious
relapse. Then at last she allowed herself to see that she was standing
on the edge of an appalling gulf. The whole family was summoned, and,
one after another, the children took a silent farewell of their father.
"It was a terrible moment," Victoria wrote in her diary, "but, thank
God! I was able to command myself, and to be perfectly calm, and
remained sitting by his side." He murmured something, but she could not
hear what it was; she thought he was speaking in French. Then all at
once he began to arrange his hair, "just as he used to do when well and
he was dressing." "Es kleines Frauchen," she whispered to him; and he
seemed to understand. For a moment, towards the evening, she went into
another room, but was immediately called back; she saw at a glance that
a ghastly change had taken place. As she knelt by the bed, he breathed
deeply, breathed gently, breathed at last no more. His features became
perfectly rigid; she shrieked one long wild shriek that rang through the
terror-stricken castle and understood that she had lost him for ever.

CHAPTER VII. WIDOWHOOD

I

The death of the Prince Consort was the central turning-point in the
history of Queen Victoria. She herself felt that her true life had
ceased with her husband's, and that the remainder of her days upon earth
was of a twilight nature--an epilogue to a drama that was done. Nor is
it possible that her biographer should escape a similar impression. For
him, too, there is a darkness over the latter half of that long career.
The first forty--two years of the Queen's life are illuminated by a
great and varied quantity of authentic information. With Albert's
death a veil descends. Only occasionally, at fitful and disconnected
intervals, does it lift for a moment or two; a few main outlines, a
few remarkable details may be discerned; the rest is all conjecture and
ambiguity. Thus, though the Queen survived her great