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.