The nature of the pains in the face from which Gladstone suffered was recognised early in 1897. His wife went with him to Cannes in the hope that a more genial climate might be beneficial, but when it became certain that the malady was incurable, they returned to Hawarden. Though there was nothing she could do for him, she sat by his bedside till the end, only consenting with great reluctance to take a few hours’ rest. When, on 19th May 1898, all was over, and her lifelong companion had gone from her, even in her deep grief she thought of others, and before the remains of her beloved husband were taken from Hawarden to their last resting-place in the Abbey, she drove out to offer consolation to two Hawarden women whose husband and fiancé had been killed in a mine accident the day before. She and her sorrow were in every one’s hearts, and Lord Rosebery, speaking in the House of Lords, expressed in memorable words what all were feeling when he referred to the “solitary and pathetic figure who for sixty years shared all the sorrows and all the joys of Mr. Gladstone’s life, who received his every confidence and every aspiration, who shared his triumphs with him and cheered him under his defeats, and by her tender vigilance sustained and prolonged his years.” Mr. Gladstone’s body was brought to London for burial in the Abbey. Mrs. Gladstone accompanied the mournful convoy, and stayed in London at the house of her niece, Lady Frederick Cavendish. She was present at the funeral, an impressive and touching scene, seated at the head of the grave, the group around which included, besides children and grandchildren, sons and daughters-in-law, princes, statesmen, high dignitaries and functionaries of every kind. When all was over the Prince of Wales[78] went up to the chief mourner and, bending down, kissed her hand, and said a word or two of sympathy; Prince George[79] did the same, thus reversing the usual attitude of sovereign and subject. The example so greatly set was followed by the other pall-bearers, and Mrs. Gladstone was so much revived by the wonderful tribute the whole funeral had been to her husband’s worth, that she was able to say to each the most suitable thing, reminding, for example, the aged Duke of Rutland that he had been Gladstone’s colleague at Newark when he had been returned for his first Parliamentary seat. Some one said that Mrs. Gladstone went into the Abbey a widow and walked out of it a bride. The death of her eldest son in 1891 and the retirement of Gladstone in 1894 had seemed to break her spirit, and it was clear to all for the first time that she really showed signs of age. But after the great testimony of the Abbey her vitality in large measure returned, and she was almost her old self until her death, which occurred at Hawarden, 14th June 1900. A few days later she was buried near her husband in Westminster Abbey.