As a young adult, Egerton spent two years in New York in an abortive attempt to earn money to support her father, brothers and sisters. Failing at this endeavour (though some of her experiences in the USA would serve as inspiration for her 1898 novel "The Wheel of God"), she returned to live in England. In 1888, in events which were notorious enough to be widely published in leading newspapers in the UK and Ireland, Egerton eloped with the then-married Henry Peter Whyte-Melville (born Henry Peter Higginson). In retaliation, Whyte-Melville's wife accused her estranged husband of being a bigamist, claiming he was already married at the time that she wed him. This allegation was later proved to be untrue. During the period of the elopement, Egerton's father pursued the couple and, newspaper reports confirm, shot at Whyte-Melville in a hansom cab. Whyte-Melville was divorced later that year and he and Egerton married in Detroit in the summer of 1888. The marriage lasted until his death a year later.