In "Dusk," how is dusk said to be the hour of the defeated?

It is important to remember that the significance of dusk
is given to the story by Norman Gortsby, who sees in this time of day a symbolism that
he finds morosely pleasing to his own state of mind and what he is thinking and feeling.
Note how the scene of "wide emptiness" and "unconsidered figures" appeals to
Gortsby:

The
scene pleased Gortsby and harmonised with his present mood. Dusk, to his mind, was the
hour of the defeated. Men and women, who had fought and lost, who hid their fallen
fortunes and dead hopes as far as possible from the scrutiny of the curious, came forth
in this hour of gloaming, when their shabby clothes and bowed shoulders and unhappy eyes
might pass unnoticed, or, at any rate,
unrecognised.

Thus the
significance of dusk is entirely created by Gortsby, who is naturally drawn to such a
time of day, which he associates with being the "hour of the defeated." He looks at this
time through his own eyes and out of his own situation, which, as the story tells us,
finds an echo with his own failure as Gortsby as well counts himself among the
"defeated." Dusk then, to Gortsby's mind, is a time when those who have failed in life
in whatever way can be free to come out without being noticed and talked about by
others. Dusk provides such people with an anonymity that it is suggested they
crave.