 In the final chapter, Winterset, a young man, now living in the "true" twentieth century history, enters the Colonial Service though it is a doomed institution with the Empire's colonies being ceded to new independent nations in Africa.He meets his older self in 1956 in Africa and learns of the truth of time-travel.He helps his older self to escape from Africa amid the chaos, and returns to London, where the story ends with their last meeting many years later.