They eventually divorced in London, perhaps as Ozaki had fathered multiple children, one with Toda Yae and seven (later totalling 14) with his Japanese mistress Fujiki Michi, creating such a situation as which "her English friends could hardly advise her [to] go."

After the divorce of their parents in 1881, on the suggestion of a friend of Baron Ozaki, all three daughters grew up with Bathia and their English grandparents in St Alban's Cottage, Fulham, London.

However, Yei refused an arranged marriage, left her father's house, and became an English tutor and secretary to earn money.

Yei returned to Japan in 1899, where Fukuzawa Yukichi arranged for a post as a teacher for at Keiō gijuku, and she lived in a Buddhist temple.

Whilst travelling in Italy, Mary's brother Francis M. Crawford, had become aware of Yei's talent for writing and telling stories.

In 1905, they finally met in Tokyo, and soon married and between 1906 and 1912 had three children, Kiyoka, Shinaye and Sōma Yukika (a noted humanitarian and the first Japanese woman to qualify as a simultaneous translator).