"You had better let me go, mother. I shall do no good here."
Tom stood before his mother with a flush upon his handsome face-a flush that was one partly of shame, partly of anger, with a dash of excitement and eagerness thrown in.
.....
But he heard nothing. The silence of the forest was unbroken save for the noise he made himself. It became plain at last that he was alone. Robin and Wildgoose had either lost his track, or had not followed him.
And a sudden doubt surged into Tom's brain as to whether or not Robin had betrayed him to the footpads. Was it not Robin who had connived at all the halts upon the way in the morning, Robin who had advised pushing on, and had undertaken to find the way by day or night? Robin was a son of the forest himself. Might he not have friends amongst these very outlaws? Had not his father warned him before this that he did not trust Robin, and did not like his son's intimacy with the young man?
