Under ordinary circumstances that is what would have happened; she would have gone back to the world after a time, outwardly the same, though inwardly changed in so far as all possibilities of love and marriage were concerned; she would have lived in society, year after year, growing old gracefully and tenderly, as some unmarried women do whose stories we never knew or have forgotten, but whose hearts are far away, watching for the great To-morrow, beside a dead man's grave, or praying before an altar whence the god has departed.
They are women whom we never call 'old maids,' perhaps because we feel that in memory they are sharing their lives with a well-loved companion whom we cannot see.

That might have been Angela's future.
But a brutal fact put such a possibility out of the question.

She was a destitute orphan, living on the charity of her former governess, whereas her nature was independent, brave, and self-reliant.

When she rose above the wave that had overwhelmed her, and opened her eyes and found her senses again, her instinct was to strike out for herself, and though she talked with Monsignor Saracinesca again and again, she had really made up her mind after her first conversation with him.

She saw that she must work for her living, but at the same time she longed to devote her life to some good work for Giovanni's sake.