investigation: but he was only in the case formally and he could not
meet the allegations, which therefore were "one-sided and unfair" and
so forth and so on.
After the necessary pause, Serjeant Armstrong plucked his wig straight
and proceeded to read letters of Dr. Wilde to Miss Travers at this
time, in which he tells her not to put too much iodine on her foot,
but to rest it for a few days in a slipper and keep it in a horizontal
position while reading a pleasant book. If she would send in, he would
try and send her one.
"I have now," concluded the Serjeant, like an actor carefully
preparing his effect, "traced this friendly intimacy down to a point
where it begins to be dangerous: I do not wish to aggravate the
gravity of the charge in the slightest by any rhetoric or by an
unconscious over-statement; you shall therefore, gentlemen of the
jury, hear from Miss Travers herself what took place between her and
Dr. Wilde and what she complains of."
Miss Travers then went into the witness-box. Though thin and past her
first youth, she was still pretty in a conventional way, with regular
features and dark eyes. She was examined by Mr. Butt, Q.C. After
confirming point by point what Serjeant Armstrong had said, she went
on to tell the jury that in the summer of '62 she had thought of going
to Australia, where her two brothers lived, who wanted her to come out
to them. Dr. Wilde lent her L40 to go, but told her she must say it
was L20 or her father might think the sum too large. She missed the
ship in London and came back. She was anxious to impress on the jury
the fact that she had repaid Dr. Wilde, that she had always repaid
whatever he had lent her.
She went on to relate how one day Dr. Wilde had got her in a kneeling
position at his feet, when he took her in his arms, declaring that he
would not let her go until she called him William. Miss Travers
refused to do this, and took umbrage at the embracing and ceased to
visit at his house: but Dr. Wilde protested extravagantly that he had
meant nothing wrong, and begged her to forgive him and gradually
|