Good-bye.' And he laid down his yellow mat, stepped on to it and was just a little wooden figure again.
Philip dropped the ear-trumpet and looked at Mr.Noah.
'I _don't_ understand,' he said.

But this at least he understood.

That Helen would come back when she got that telegram, and that before she came he must go into the other world and find the lost Lucy.
'But oh,' he said, 'suppose I _don't_ find her.

I wish I hadn't built those cities so big! And time will go on.

And, perhaps, when Helen comes back she'll find _me_ lost _too_--as well as Lucy.' But he dried his eyes and told himself that this was not how heroes behaved.