He could get no farther—his feelings overcame him.
"I am afraid he is," said Faith, very faintly, "for I have given him no right to be sending me presents."
Mr. Denton leaned back in his chair with one hand to his brow. The detective's ruse in covering the candy had produced results as startling as they were suspicious.
If Faith had known of the poison in the candy no power could have induced her to tell what she had, but up to the present she was in total ignorance of the matter, and it was now Mr. Denton's turn to dread the next disclosures.
"My dear child," he said at last; "I have something to tell you—something that will shock you even more than your news shocks me; it is this, your box of candy to-day was poisoned."
Faith stared at him stupidly for the space of a second, then the full situation dawned slowly upon her. "If that is the case, your son did not send it, Mr. Denton!" she cried in decided accents, "for although he is thoughtless and careless of others, he would shrink from doing such a deed as that, even though he had a motive, which he certainly hasn't!"
"I believe you," said Mr. Denton, in a tone of relief. "Whoever sent the candy is making my son the scapegoat! You say there was no writing on the package when you got it, young man, and no message or card when you opened it in the lunch-room?"
"I can vouch for that," said Tyler, as the boy shook his head. "I was watching the boy when he opened the candy."
"Have you any enemies in the store that you know of, Miss Marvin—any one who is aware that my son has sent you candy?"
Mr. Denton had turned toward Faith as he asked the question.