Winston noted the look, but failed to assign the correct reason for it. Helen had given more to the work than he had thought.
"There's no danger, really." Winston spoke with conviction. "It's just this. We've built a rip-rap dam with a stone facing. No amount of water behind it can ever move it. Yet if by chance the water should flow over the crest, it would go in an hour."
"What's to prevent it?" Helen's voice was sharp.
"The waste weir." Winston pointed to the stone paved canal on the far side of the dam. "We know the rainfall here. That spillway will handle twice the amount."
"But if it should become choked?"
"We have the flood gates." Winston pointed to the two great shafts that reached up from the base of the dam, crowned with grooved wheels.
"But suppose they should get wedged so they could not be opened?"
"Then I would advise you to get out of the way! What's the matter, Helen?" Winston grew suddenly conscious that there was more in Helen's persistent questions than appeared on the surface.
Helen did not reply.
"Couldn't all this have been provided against?"