“I'll go,” said Dorothy.
“It's outside, thee knows. Thee'll get awful wet, Dorothy.”
“Well, I'd just as soon be drowned as burned up. Come with me to the head of the stairs.”
They felt their way hand in hand in the darkness, and Dorothy went down alone. She had forgotten about the “tip-trough,” but she understood its significance. In a few moments a cascade shot out over the wheel, sending the water far into the garden.
“Right over my chrysanthemum bed,” sighed Dorothy.
The wheel swung slower and slower, the mocking tumult subsided, and the old mill sank into sleep again.
There was nothing now to drown the roaring of the floods and the steady drive of the storm.
“There's a lantern,” Shep called from the door. He had opened the upper half and was shielding himself behind it. “I guess it's Evesham coming back for us. He's a pretty good sort of a fellow after all; don't thee think so, Dorothy? He owes us something for drowning us out at the sheep-washing.”
“What does all this mean?” said Dorothy, as Evesham swung himself over the half-door and his lantern showed them to each other in their various phases of wetness.
“There's a big leak in the lower dam; I've been afraid of it all along; there's something wrong in the principle of the thing.”