Using the ploy of hinting that she cares, the woman leads Arthur into believing there's hope if he can impress her. The ailing and exhausted Fox admits his own defeated position, trusting him with editorial power for a few hours. The climax comes when Arthur has the chance to insert an article that would avert history, to stop the presses at "The Hour". But with a desire to show how much he is like her kind, to earn her favour, he decides not to. He learns to his dismay that he did just what he was meant to do, undermine Fox – Gurnard's opponent – that he never had a place in her scheme, and has betrayed anyone who would have meant anything to him, such as Churchill, Callan and Fox. Learning she is marrying a triumphant Gurnard, realising there is no going back and no future for him, he has a minor breakdown at his Club, where people speak of him as "the one they got at".