she wrote the
letter complained of to Dr. Travers and enclosed it in a sealed
envelope. She wished to get Dr. Travers to use his parental influence
to stop Miss Travers from further disgracing herself and insulting and
annoying Sir William and Lady Wilde.

The defence carried the war into the enemy's camp by thus suggesting
that Miss Travers was blackmailing Sir William and Lady Wilde.

The attack in the hands of Serjeant Armstrong was still more deadly
and convincing. He rose early on the Monday afternoon and declared at
the beginning that the case was so painful that he would have
preferred not to have been engaged in it--a hypocritical statement
which deceived no one, and was just as conventional-false as his wig.
But with this exception the story he told was extraordinarily clear
and gripping.

Some ten years before, Miss Travers, then a young girl of nineteen,
was suffering from partial deafness, and was recommended by her own
doctor to go to Dr. Wilde, who was the chief oculist and aurist in
Dublin. Miss Travers went to Dr. Wilde, who treated her successfully.
Dr. Wilde would accept no fees from her, stating at the outset that as
she was the daughter of a brother-physician, he thought it an honour
to be of use to her. Serjeant Armstrong assured his hearers that in
spite of Miss Travers' beauty he believed that at first Dr. Wilde took
nothing but a benevolent interest in the girl. Even when his
professional services ceased to be necessary, Dr. Wilde continued his
friendship. He wrote Miss Travers innumerable letters: he advised her
as to her reading and sent her books and tickets for places of
amusement: he even insisted that she should be better dressed, and
pressed money upon her to buy bonnets and clothes and frequently
invited her to his house for dinners and parties. The friendship went
on in this sentimental kindly way for some five or six years till
1860.

The wily Serjeant knew enough about human nature to feel that it was
necessary to discover some dramatic incident to change benevolent
sympathy into passion, and he certainly found what he wanted.

Miss Travers, it appeared, had been burnt low down on her neck when a
child: the cicatrice could still be seen, though it was gradually
disappearing. When her ears were being examined by Dr. Wilde, it was
customary for her to kneel on a hassock before him, and he thus
discovered this burn on her neck. After her hearing improved he still
continued to exam