off Jimmy's brow. He assented.

"Do you wish to make final confession?"

A great groan shook Jimmy. The priest remembered a gay, laughing boy,
flinging back a shock of auburn hair, his feet twinkling in the lead of
the dance. Here was ruin to make the heart of compassion ache. The
Father bent and clasped the hand of Jimmy firmly. The question he asked
was between Jimmy Malone and his God. The answer almost strangled him.

"Can you confess that mortal sin, Jimmy?" asked the priest.

The drops on Jimmy's face merged in one bath of agony. His hands
clenched and his breath seemed to go no lower than his throat.

"Lied--Dannie," he rattled. "Sip-rate him--and Mary."

"Are you trying to confess that you betrayed a confidence of Dannie
Macnoun and married the girl who belonged to him, yourself?"

Jimmy assented.

His horrified eyes hung on the priest's face and saw it turn cold and
stern. Always the thing he had done had tormented him; but not until
the past summer had he begun to realize the depth of it, and it had
almost unseated his reason. But not until now had come fullest
appreciation, and Jimmy read it in the eyes filled with repulsion above
him.

"And with that sin on your soul, you ask the last sacrament and the
seal of forgiveness! You have not wronged God and the Holy Catholic
Church as you have this man, with whom you have lived for years, while
you possessed his rightful wife. Now he is here, in deathless devotion,
fighting to save you. You may confess to him. If he will forgive you,
God and the Church will ratify it, and set the seal on your brow. If
not, you die unshriven! I will call Dannie Macnoun."

One gurgling howl broke from the swollen lips of Jimmy.

As Dannie entered the room, the priest spoke a few words to him,
stepped out and closed the door. Dannie hurried to Jimmy's side.

"He said ye wanted to tell me something," said Dannie. "What is it? Do
you want me to do anything for you?"

Suddenly Jimmy struggled to a sitting posture. His popping eyes almost
burst from their sockets as he clutched Dannie with both hands. The
perspiration poured in little streams down his dreadful face.

"Mary," the next word was lost in a strangled gasp. Then came "yours"
and then a queer rattle. Something seemed to give way. "The Divils!" he
shrieked. "The Divils have got me!"

Snap! his heart failed, and Jimmy Malone went out to face his record,
unforgiven by man, and unshriven by priest.

Chapter