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.