Few moments in life are as profoundly lonely as the day after the funeral of a loved one.
And if the loss is of a lifelong companion – one's 'strength and stay', as the Queen so elegantly described her husband of 73 years, the Duke of Edinburgh – then it marks the point at which a life, irrevocably changed, must somehow carry on without them.
The important paperwork and admin that always accompanies a death is largely done. The well-wishers and consolers have paid their tributes and shared memories.
But when the door finally closes and Elizabeth is left alone without her Philip, the man who devoted his life to being by her side, what then?