"Heaven forgive you!" he cried bitterly.
"My idea has been simply this.

Try, in decency, to understand it.

I have tried to befriend you, to help you, to inspire you with confidence, and I have failed.

I took you from the hands of your mother and your betrothed, and it seemed to me my duty to restore you to their hands.
That 's all I have to say." He was going, but Roderick forcibly detained him.

It would have been but a rough way of expressing it to say that one could never know how Roderick would take a thing.