How one comes to confess (5)
I believe the answer is:
clean
'to confess' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'how one' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'one' could be 'an' (an apple is one apple) and 'an' is found within the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'comes' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for clean that I've seen before include "Unsoiled" , "Not soiled, free from dirt" , "Quite" , "Remove dirt or stain" , "Uncontaminated" .)