Incidentally the priest commits suicide with a turmoil for he cannot break the promise made to the brotherhood of serving the needed, and for he cannot live without Gabriella.

Cast out into society, Gabbie is determined to move on and finds an apartment where the tenants welcome the young woman lovingly, particularly an old professor.

Everything seems to be going well; Gabbie has a job at a pastry shop, but loses it when she defends a child whose mother dislocates her arm in a fit of impatience.

Eventually she finds a job at a book store whilst buying a Christmas present to her doting friend, the old professor.

But before moving on with her life with Peter, Gabriella decides to meet her parents and ask them the long avoided question - why they abandoned her and never loved her.

Gabbie then visits her stepfather and his new wife where it is learned that her mother never changed her bitter ways till the end and even went so far as to verbally abuse her new husband until she died of cancer.

Publishers Weekly gave the book an unfavorable review, remarking that "The inevitable happy ending, when it finally arrives, can't make up for a plodding narrative lacking in any real suspense.