Seven years afterward, Gilbert died. His widow promptly married Captain Craigie, a solid, worthy, Scotch comrade-at-arms of her late husband's. Craigie generously assumed all post-Byronic responsibilities, along with the marriage vows. And, at his expense, Betty was sent to Scotland--later to Paris--to be educated. At sixteen the girl was a beauty--and a witch as well. She and her mother spent a season at Bath, a resort that still retained in those days some shreds of its former glory. And there--among a score of younger and poorer admirers--two men sued for Betty's hand. One was Captain James, a likable, susceptible, not over-clever army officer, home on furlough from India. The other was a judge, very old, very gouty, very rich. And Betty's mother chose the judge, out of all the train of suitors, as her son-in-law-elect. Years had taught worldly wisdom to the once-gay Eliza. Betty listened in horror to the old man's mumbled vows. Then, at top speed, she fled to Captain James. She told James that her mother was seeking to sacrifice her on the altar of wealth. James, like a true early-Victorian hero, rose manfully to the occasion. He and Betty eloped, were married by a registrar, and took the next out-bound ship for India. It was a day of long and slow voyages. Betty beguiled the time on shipboard by a course of behavior such as would have prevented the most charitable fellow passenger from mistaking her for a returning missionary. There were many Anglo-Indians--officers and civilians--aboard. And Betty's flirtations, with all and sundry, speedily became the scandal of the ship. By the time the vessel docked in India, there were dozens of women ready to spread abroad the bride's fame in her new home land. English society in India was, and is, in many respects like that of a provincial town. In the official and army set, one member's business is everybody's business. Nor did Betty take any pains to erase the impressions made by her volunteer advance agents. Like a blazing star, she burst upon the horizon of India army life. Gloriously beautiful, willful, capricious, brilliant, she speedily had a horde of men at her feet--and a still larger number of women at her throat. Her flirtations were the talk of mess-room and bungalow. Heartlessly, she danced on hearts. There was some subtle quality about her that drove men mad with infatuation. And her husband? He looked on in horrified wonder. Then he argued and even threatened. At last he shut up and took to drink. Betty wrote contemptuously to a friend, concerning this last phase: "He spends his time in drinking, and then in sleeping like a gorged boa-constrictor." James was liked by the English out there, and his friends fiercely resented the domestic treatment that was turning a popular and promising officer into a sodden beast.