She would not permit herself to think of Giovanni, even though, from a general point of view, she might contemplate the possibility of a second marriage.

She would go to Padre Filippo and talk over everything with him; he would advise her well.
Then a wild longing seized her to leave Rome for a while, to breathe the air of the country, to get away from the scene of all her troubles, of all the terrible emotions that had swept over her life in the last three weeks, to be alone in the hills or by the sea.

It seemed dreadful to be tied to her great house in the city, in her mourning, shut off suddenly from the world, and bound down by the chain of conventionality to a fixed method of existence.

She would give anything to go away.

Why not?
She suddenly realised what was so hard to understand, that she was free to go where she pleased--if only, by accident, she could chance to meet Giovanni Saracinesca before she left.