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.
But was there a seduction? The girl asserted that there was guilty intimacy,
and Sir William Wilde had not contradicted her. It was said that he was only
formally a defendant; but he was the real defendant and he could have gone
into the box if he had liked and given his version of what took place and
contradicted Miss Travers in whole or in part.
"It is for you, gentlemen of the jury, to draw your own conclusions from
his omission to do what one would have thought would be an honourable man's
first impulse and duty."
Finally it was for the jury to consider whether the letter was a libel and
if so what the amount of damages should be.
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