What was too late to mend according to Godfrey?

According to Godfrey it is too late to mend his relationship with his daughter.

“She thinks I did wrong by her mother as well as by her. She thinks me worse than I am. But she must think it: she can never know all. It’s part of my punishment, Nancy, for my daughter to dislike me. I should never have got into that trouble if I’d been true to you—if I hadn’t been a fool. I’d no right to expect anything but evil could come of that marriage—and when I shirked doing a father’s part too.”