Lady Wilde gave her evidence emphatically, but was too bitter to be a persuasive witness.  It was tried to prove from her letter that she believed that Miss Travers had had an intrigue with Sir William Wilde, but she would not have it.  She did not for a moment believe in her husband’s guilt.  Miss Travers wished to make it appear, she said, that she had an intrigue with Sir William Wilde, but in her opinion it was utterly untrue.  Sir William Wilde was above suspicion.  There was not a particle of truth in the accusation; her husband would never so demean himself.

Lady Wilde’s disdainful speeches seemed to persuade the populace, but had small effect on the jury, and still less on the judge.

When she was asked if she hated Miss Travers, she replied that she did not hate anyone, but she had to admit that she disliked Miss Travers’ methods of action.

“Why did you not answer Miss Travers when she wrote telling you of your husband’s attempt on her virtue?”

“I took no interest in the matter,” was the astounding reply.

The defence made an even worse mistake than this.  When the time came, Sir William Wilde was not called.

In his speech for Miss Travers, Mr. Butt made the most of this omission.  He declared that the refusal of Sir William Wilde to go into the witness box was an admission of guilt; an admission that Miss Travers’ story of her betrayal was true and could not be contradicted.  But the refusal of Sir William Wilde to go into the box was not, he insisted, the worst point in the defence.  He reminded the jury that he had asked Lady Wilde why she had not answered Miss Travers when she wrote to her.  He recalled Lady Wilde’s reply: 

“I took no interest in the matter.”

Every woman would be interested in such a thing, he declared, even a stranger; but Lady Wilde hated her husband’s victim and took no interest in her seduction beyond writing a bitter, vindictive and libellous letter to the girl’s father....

The speech was regarded as a masterpiece and enhanced the already great reputation of the man who was afterwards to become the Home Rule Leader.

It only remained for the judge to sum up, for everyone was getting impatient to hear the verdict.  Chief Justice Monahan made a short, impartial speech, throwing the dry, white light of truth upon the conflicting and passionate statements.  First of all, he said, it was difficult to believe in the story of rape whether with or without chloroform.  If the girl had been violated she would be expected to cry out at the time, or at least to complain to her father as soon as she reached home.  Had it been a criminal trial, he pointed out, no one would have believed this part of Miss Travers’ story.  When you find a girl does not cry out at the time and does not complain afterwards, and returns to the house to meet further rudeness, it must be presumed that she consented to the seduction.