He looked back along the past year and saw the man's dog-like devotion to Zora Middlemist.

But why did he marry Emmy, loving the sister as he did?
Why live apart from her, having married her?
And the child?
It was all a mystery in which he did not see clear.

He pitied the ineffectuality of Septimus with the kind yet half-contemptuous pity of the strong man with a fine nature.

But as for his denial of Zora's faith, he laughed it away.

Egotistical, yes.