Her cry awoke her sister who turned to soothe her, patting her as she would a child. “Why, Alison, dear child, you must have had a horrid dream,” she said. “Go to sleep. There are no Indians.” But Alison did not go to sleep. In the fastnesses of the mountains she knew there were Indians. She had sent her knight into their midst. What folly! what folly! Why had she not considered the danger? She clasped the ribbon by which she had swung her ring around her neck and feeling for the circlet she softly kissed it. “Oh, Neal, Neal,” she whispered, “if I could call you back, I would. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.” She lay very still listening to Christine’s quiet breathing, and it came over her that now for the first time, she comprehended the meaning and the misery of hope deferred. “I was thinking of you, and not of him, Christine,” she murmured, “and you have not given up hope in all this long while, then why should I so soon? They will come back together.” And seeking her sister’s hand she held it till she slept. But the next morning she took the ring from its ribbon and wore it proudly on her hand. Christine looked at it questioningly. “When Neal comes back I want him to see it there,” said Alison, but she would discuss the subject no further. “I believe Alison is very fond of Neal,” Christine said to her brother later in the day. “I’m glad of it,” returned John. “She’s all the world to him. He told me so two years ago, but I reminded him that she was but a child; that she had not waked up yet.” “She has waked up now,” said Christine. CHAPTER XVIII LOLITA All winter long Alison hoped for news from Neal, but not so much as a word had come when spring was fairly arrived, and many were the fears which possessed the girl as time went by and she dwelt upon the possibilities of that adventure into which her knight had gone. But the events of every day occupied her, and with Christine’s patience as a model she did not give way to any actual despair. During this time it is not to be supposed that she saw nothing of Lolita, though, be the fact known, Lolita was much concerned in her own affairs and had room for little else in her thoughts. Blythe no longer made a secret of his devotion, and his family for some time had suspected that his visits to the Rosses’ rancho were not on Alison’s account, this especially after Alison began to wear her ring openly, and had confided to Laura that Neal had given it to her. “Dear, dear, and I hoped you would be my sister,” said Laura. “Well, so I shall be,” replied Alison, “for surely, miss, you will not play the coquette with my brother.” As no one before had ever hinted that Laura possessed any of the qualities of a coquette, she was covered with confusion and indignantly repudiated any such charge. “You know better than to say such a thing as that, Alison Ross,” she said.