The priest stood beside Jimmy. "The doctor tells me it is
difficult for you to speak," he said, "I will help you all I can.
I will ask questions and you need only assent with your head or
hand. Do you wish the last sacrament administered, Jimmy Malone?"
The sweat rolled 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.
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