“I begin to think so, Mr. Holmes, but when I thought of all the precaution I had taken to shield this girl⁠—for I loved her, Mr. Holmes, and it is the only time that ever I knew what love was⁠—it fairly drove me mad to think that she was in the power of the greatest brute and bully in South Africa⁠—a man whose name is a holy terror from Kimberley to Johannesburg. Why, Mr. Holmes, you’ll hardly believe it, but ever since that girl has been in my employment I never once let her go past this house, where I knew the rascals were lurking, without following her on my bicycle, just to see that she came to no harm. I kept my distance from her, and I wore a beard, so that she should not recognize me, for she is a good and high-spirited girl, and she wouldn’t have stayed in my employment long if she had thought that I was following her about the country roads.”

“Why didn’t you tell her of her danger?”