She was a young girl in a music-shop; and it was represented to me that it would be beneath my position to marry her.
Hence the result.' 'Well, all I can say is that after twenty years it is probably too late to think of mending such a matter.

It has doubtless by this time mended itself.

You had better dismiss it from your mind as an evil past your control.

Of course, if mother and daughter are alive, or either, you might settle something upon them, if you were inclined, and had it to spare.' 'Well, I haven't much to spare; and I have relations in narrow circumstances--perhaps narrower than theirs.

But that is not the point.
Were I ever so rich I feel I could not rectify the past by money.