Read it through once

"I mean,"--said he, with serious energy--"if I can, to make you hate me one degree less than you do _now._ I mean to offer some kind of explanation, some kind of apology, for the past; to open my whole heart to you, and by convincing you, that though I have been always a blockhead, I have not been always a rascal, to obtain something like forgiveness from Ma----, from your sister."