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A royal aide asked Prince Harry to end his chat with a widow. His response was startling.

Warning: This post includes mentions of suicide.

Somehow, Prince Harry’s compassion towards others is still continuing to impress us.

This week the royal had the most heartwarming response to being told to wrap up a conversation with a widow, who lost her Australian soldier husband last year.

While climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and a few select others on Friday, Prince Harry could be seen with his arms tightly around a woman.

That woman was 41-year-old mum-of-three Gwen Cherne, who is this year an ambassador for the Invictus Games, which Harry founded in 2014 and opened on Saturday.

Prince Harry Sydney Harbour Bridge
Gwen (left) was among the select few who climbed the harbour bridge with Prince Harry. Image: Getty

Gwen told People magazine she and Prince Harry were discussing mental health as she told him the story of her husband Peter Cafe, who died by suicide in February last year. The special forces officer had served in Afghanistan and Iraq and showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety in the years before his death at age 48.

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Then, several minutes into their 10-minute conversation, one of Prince Harry's staff interrupted to tell the 34-year-old to move on.

"[Prince Harry] stopped and said, 'I’m in a middle of a conversation, and I’m not going to leave this.'"

"We were talking about my story and mental health and how difficult it is still, in our society, to talk about grief and loss and suicide.

"And how important things like the Invictus Games are to shedding light on, and allowing people to start to have these conversations that are great to have."

Gwen said Prince Harry also wanted to make sure she was getting the support she needed and that he understood her story correctly.

He also asked about her three children and how they were coping.

"Lachlan [three years old] is the spitting image of my husband. Harry said something like the children must remind you of him, or live on in him. And I said my son is so much like him."

The royal, a former serviceman with the British Army himself, created the Invictus Games in 2014. The Games' competitors are made up of injured and ill servicemen and women from Great Britain and countries that have fought alongside the UK.

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