diff --git a/R-package/tests/testthat/test_dmatrix.R b/R-package/tests/testthat/test_dmatrix.R
index efc0ca0d6..304f0e873 100644
--- a/R-package/tests/testthat/test_dmatrix.R
+++ b/R-package/tests/testthat/test_dmatrix.R
@@ -77,6 +77,18 @@ test_that("xgb.DMatrix: slice, dim", {
   expect_equal(getinfo(dsub1, 'label'), getinfo(dsub2, 'label'))
 })
 
+test_that("xgb.DMatrix: slice, trailing empty rows", {
+  data(agaricus.train, package='xgboost')
+  train_data <- agaricus.train$data
+  train_label <- agaricus.train$label
+  dtrain <- xgb.DMatrix(data=train_data, label=train_label)
+  slice(dtrain, 6513L)
+  train_data[6513, ] <- 0
+  dtrain <- xgb.DMatrix(data=train_data, label=train_label)
+  slice(dtrain, 6513L)
+  expect_equal(nrow(dtrain), 6513)
+})
+
 test_that("xgb.DMatrix: colnames", {
   dtest <- xgb.DMatrix(test_data, label=test_label)
   expect_equal(colnames(dtest), colnames(test_data))
diff --git a/src/c_api/c_api.cc b/src/c_api/c_api.cc
index 77822c294..c64bed42e 100644
--- a/src/c_api/c_api.cc
+++ b/src/c_api/c_api.cc
@@ -332,7 +332,12 @@ XGB_DLL int XGDMatrixCreateFromCSCEx(const size_t* col_ptr,
   mat.info.num_row_ = mat.page_.offset.size() - 1;
   if (num_row > 0) {
     CHECK_LE(mat.info.num_row_, num_row);
+    // provision for empty rows at the bottom of matrix
+    for (uint64_t i = mat.info.num_row_; i < static_cast<uint64_t>(num_row); ++i) {
+      mat.page_.offset.push_back(mat.page_.offset.back());
+    }
     mat.info.num_row_ = num_row;
+    CHECK_EQ(mat.info.num_row_, mat.page_.offset.size() - 1);  // sanity check
   }
   mat.info.num_col_ = ncol;
   mat.info.num_nonzero_ = nelem;