The chapter opens with a letter dated November 22, 1917, from a Captain Ferryman, officially informing Dora of Lieutenant Charles J. A. Baker’s death. The letter states that Charles had not yet told his parents of their engagement and had requested she not contact them.

In the present, the day after the incident at the Sheldonian, Beatrice sends a note to Charles at Queen’s College, requesting a meeting. She, Otto, and Marianne discuss the situation while Dora recovers from a doctor-administered sedative. They speculate that Charles either faked his death or was mistakenly reported as killed. That evening, Dora stands watch outside Queen’s College for hours, hoping to see Charles. Unsuccessful, she walks back alone through the Covered Market, taking a less direct route to avoid being reported for breaking curfew. As she nears St. Hugh’s, a worried Otto and Marianne find her.

On January 29, a heavy snowfall prevents Marianne from traveling home to Culham. She, Beatrice, and Otto escort a nervous Dora to the Botanic Garden to meet Charles Baker. They find him waiting and Dora approaches him alone. At first, he doesn’t recognize her, but upon realizing who she is, he becomes visibly shocked.

Charles confesses that he faked his death. He explains that the war changed his views on marriage and that he and a friend composed the letter while drunk, never expecting to survive. He cruelly tells Dora that letting her believe he was dead was “kinder” than causing a scandal, as his upper-class parents would never have approved of her family’s working-class social standing. When Dora, devastated, threatens to expose him, he retorts that she won’t risk the public ridicule. Claiming his war trauma is far worse than her suffering, he says they must not meet again, then leaves to go ice-skating with friends. As he walks away, Dora’s friends rush to comfort her.

This chapter flashes back to February 1918, when an 18-year-old Beatrice is working as a volunteer typist for the Women’s Volunteer Reserve in London. She feels like an outsider among her more conventional coworkers and longs to find a sense of belonging at Oxford.

The office celebrates when the Representation of the People Act grants some women the right to vote. That evening, Beatrice avoids a party at her home hosted by her mother, Edith. Upon returning, she witnesses two women kissing passionately in a corridor, a sight that awakens a new understanding of her own desires. Later, at the party, Edith belittles Beatrice’s war work in front of Elizabeth Rix, a famous suffragette whom Beatrice deeply admires. Humiliated, Beatrice flees to her room. Rix follows and gives Beatrice a “suffragette penny” as a good-luck charm, urging her to remember that persistence is the key to change. The gesture makes Beatrice feel seen and valued.

In February 1921, a misogynistic poem targeting women students is published in the university magazine Isis.

Otto tries joining the hockey club to lift Dora’s spirits but quits after finding it primitive. She focuses instead on her mathematics studies and, on a whim, arranges to have tea with Arthur Motson-Brown, the student who pranked her and Beatrice. The meeting is a failure; he is self-absorbed and gives her a pornographic postcard.

Meanwhile, Beatrice is publicly humiliated and dismissed by a male don for being late to a lecture. When she bravely returns the following week, two male students show her unexpected kindness: One gives her notes from the missed lecture, and another leaves her a snowdrop and a supportive message. Later, Beatrice and Marianne see Thomas Hardy receive an honorary degree. Afterward, they meet Otto, and Beatrice recounts her lecture experience to a group that includes Ursula Singh, a charismatic third-year from Somerville. Beatrice is immediately infatuated with Ursula, but Otto is dismissive of her.

On March 4, the Eights attend a private viewing of Pre-Raphaelite art at the Ashmolean Museum, chaperoned by Miss Jourdain. Dora, who has failed a required exam for the second time, remains withdrawn. At the event, Marianne encounters Henry Hadley. They connect while discussing the art’s relevance in a post-war world and share an emotional moment over a Robert Graves poem. Henry then informs Dora that Charles is also present.

While Beatrice becomes captivated by Ursula Singh, Marianne finds her and relays the news about Charles. They soon realize Dora is missing. They eventually spot her across the room, staring as Charles and his drunken friends gather around a piano. In a shocking act of defiance, Dora approaches the group, downs a glass of champagne, and passionately kisses one of Charles’s companions. Charles is stunned into silence. Dora then staggers outside, where she experiences a mental health crisis, overwhelmed by hatred and shame. Beatrice notices that Miss Jourdain witnessed the entire incident from a staircase above.

On March 10, Miss Jourdain summons Dora to her study. The principal lists Dora’s recent infractions: failing her exams, her behavior at the Sheldonian and the Ashmolean, and being out alone after dark. Citing the need for women students to be above reproach, Miss Jourdain suspends Dora from the university until she can pass a makeup exam over the vacation. She also informs Dora that she will write to her parents, who may choose not to let her return at all.

Feeling the injustice of being punished for her reaction to Charles’s cruelty, Dora returns to her room. She impulsively cuts off her long hair with a pair of scissors, a decision she immediately regrets. After packing her trunk and leaving small gifts for her friends, she burns her last photograph of Charles in the fireplace.

A flashback to the summer of 1917 details how 17-year-old Dora met Charles Baker in her hometown of Berkhamsted, which was then a training ground for military cadets. Charles, a cadet, first appears when his stray dog kills her brothers’ pet rabbit. He apologizes and charms her entire family by replacing the pet.

Dora and her friend, Hilda Dodd, begin spending time with Charles. Over the summer, Dora and Charles fall in love during picnics, cinema outings, and secret meetings near the practice trenches on the common, where they share their first kiss. The night before he leaves for his commission in France, Charles proposes, asking her to wait for a formal engagement until he can tell his parents. He gives her an empty cigarette tin as a keepsake. Three months later, Dora receives the letter announcing his death. Two weeks after that, Dora’s brother, George, is also killed in the war.

On the last day of the semester, March 11, 1921, Queen Mary visits Oxford to receive an honorary degree. Dora fails to meet the others for the ceremony. At the Sheldonian, the university chancellor, Lord Curzon, who was a former anti-suffragist, gives a speech that Beatrice finds hypocritical. Later, Otto attends a reception for the queen at Somerville College in recognition of her war service as a VAD nurse there. She overhears two former colleagues gossiping maliciously about her. In a cold fury, she burns several holes in one woman’s coat with her cigarette and leaves unnoticed.

Meanwhile, Beatrice and Marianne learn that Dora cut her hair and left the college, saying she was going to see the queen. They realize she has gone to Queen’s College, where a reception is being held. They rush over and find Otto intercepting Dora, who was planning to publicly denounce Charles to the queen. They lead Dora to a nearby graveyard to calm her down. As a university chant celebrating the queen is heard in the distance, a weeping Dora finally asks to be taken home.