Alice, Cecilia's third youngest sister, caused a scandal in Victoria when at the age of seventeen she eloped with Douglas' private secretary Charles Good. Douglas sent a government agent after them, but it was too late. The couple had been married by an American Justice of the Peace at Port Townsend.

When they returned the next day, Douglas insisted they go through a second marriage ceremony, as he was uncertain about the validity of it, so on August 31, 1861, they re-exchanged their vows in Victoria. The marriage was not a happy one, however, and eventually obtained a divorce, and later remarried.

"Had she trusted her Father more, and put less faith in God, how different, and how much more happy would her lot in life have been"
-James Douglas

1860's Folk Song about the Alice Douglas