Toohey now judges the moment propitious to strike. When Wynand is out of town, he goes against policy and attacks Roark in The Banner; Wynand fires Toohey. The union of Wynand employees, organized and controlled by Toohey, goes out on strike. Wynand and Dominique, with virtually no assistance, put out the paper by themselves; it comes back unread. The newspaper's board of directors meets and points out the huge sums of money The Banner is losing. Mitchell Layton, a wealthy follower of Toohey, who owns the second largest block of the paper's stock, offers to buy Wynand out. The board makes clear that the choice is simple: Either accept back the men fired and alter the paper's stand on Roark, or close the newspaper. Wynand relents; in order to save The Banner he agrees to publicly reverse his position on the Cortlandt dynamiting.
Dominique leaves him and moves in with Roark, who awaits trial. On their first morning together, she calls the police and newspapers to report her jewelry stolen in the night. She knows that the story of Mrs. Wynand spending the night alone with another man — especially the accused dynamiter, Howard Roark — will be front page news on the New York tabloids. Dominique realizes that if Gail Wynand, in order to save the tawdry, pandering Banner, publicly calls the noble Roark "a reprehensible character, a dangerous, unprincipled, antisocial type of man," then justice requires his own wife and reputation to be offered up to his public in as lurid a story as possible. Even though Dominique knows that what she is doing makes it harder for Roark, that it adds scandal to everything else society throws at him, she is happy. For now she is unafraid of society's judgment — willing to face whatever it does to her or to Roark — and is free to pursue her values.
