QUEEN. She was devoted to you, wasn't she?

LORD B. I never read the depth of her devotion-till after her death. Then,
Madam--this I have told to nobody but yourself--then I found among her
papers--addressed "to my dear husband"--a message, written only a few days
before her death, with a hand shaken by that nerve-racking and fatal
malady which she endured so patiently--begging me to marry again.

(_The Queen is now really crying, and finds speech difficult._)

QUEEN. And you, you--? Dear Lord Beaconsfield; did you mean--had you ever
meant----?

LORD B. I did not then, Madam; nor have I ever done so since. It is enough
if I allow myself--to love.

QUEEN. Oh, yes, yes; I understand--better than others would. For that has
always been my own feeling.

LORD B. In the history of my race, Madam, there has been a great tradition
of faithfulness between husbands and wives. For the hardness of our
hearts, we are told, Moses permitted us to give a writing of divorcement.
But we have seldom acted on it. In my youth I became a Christian; I
married a Christian. But that was no reason for me to desert the nobler
traditions of my race--for they are in the blood and in the heart. When my
wife died I had no thought to marry again; and when I came upon that
tender wish, still I had no thought for it; my mind would not change.
Circumstances that have happened since have sealed irrevocably my
resolution-never to marry again.