It was one of his cherished beliefs that the evil that men do has a trick of finding them out in this life, and here, he believed, as shrew-ridden husband and despised father, the Earl of Ostermore was being made to expiate that sin of his early years.
Another of Mr.Caryll's philosophies was that, when all is said, man is little of a free agent.

His viciousness or sanctity is temperamental; and not the man, but his nature--which is not self-imbued--must bear the responsibility of a man's deeds, be they good or bad.
In the abstract such beliefs are well enough; they are excellent standards by which to judge where other sufferers than ourselves are concerned.

But when we ourselves are touched, they are discounted by the measure in which a man's deeds or misdeeds may affect us.

And although to an extent this might be the case now with Mr.Caryll, yet, in spite of it, he found himself excusing his father on the score of the man's weakness and stupidity, until he caught himself up with the reflection that this was a disloyalty to Everard, to his training, and to his mother.

And yet--he reverted--in such a man as Ostermore, sheer stupidity, a lack of imagination, of insight into things as they really are, a lack of feeling that would disable him from appreciating the extent of any wrong he did, seemed to Mr.Caryll to be extenuating circumstances.
He conceived that he was amazingly dispassionate in his judgment, and he wondered was he right or wrong so to be.