- 开头部分 … CHAPTER II
This section covers the opening of Jane Eyre through the end of Chapter II, where the ten-year-old narrator, confined to the window-seat during a wet November afternoon at Gateshead Hall, is attacked by John Reed, who hurls a book at her and calls her a dependent with no money. When she protests, she is dragged to the red-room, the chamber where Mr. Reed died, and locked in. Bessie and Miss Abbot lecture her on her dependence on Mrs. Reed, and the narrator reflects on her unjust treatment, her lack of affection from the household, and a fear of the dead uncle's ghost. The chapter ends in a fit after Mrs. Reed refuses to release her. It does not yet reach her schooling at Lowood, which begins in later chapters.
- CHAPTER III
This chapter opens with Jane Eyre waking after her fit in the red-room, where she sees the apothecary Mr. Lloyd at her bedside, and it follows her through the next day in the nursery at Gateshead Hall. Jane's nerves are shattered; the tart, the picture-book Gulliver's Travels, and Bessie's songs no longer comfort her. Mr. Lloyd questions her about her unhappiness, and she tells him of John Reed's violence, Mrs. Reed's cruelty, and the haunting red-room. He raises the idea of schooling, and the chapter closes with the servants Abbot and Bessie gossiping about the Reeds and recounting Jane's parentage: a poor clergyman father and a mother who married beneath her family, both dead of typhus. Jane's later life at school and the Reeds' further treatment of her fall outside this chapter.
- CHAPTER IV
Chapter IV of Jane Eyre covers Jane's life at Gateshead from her recovery through mid-January, when she is sent to Lowood. It opens with her waiting for a change in her situation, after Bessie and Abbot's talk and Mr. Lloyd's suggestion of school, and it shows Mrs. Reed isolating her in the nursery, the cousins excluding her, and Jane's first open defiance, in which she tells Mrs. Reed that the dead Uncle Reed would condemn her treatment. The central episode is Mr. Brocklehurst's interview, where he questions Jane on her religion and Mrs. Reed describes her as deceitful and arranges her admission to Lowood. Jane's bitter outburst against Mrs. Reed, followed by remorse and a reconciling evening with Bessie, closes the chapter. Lowood's school routines and the other pupils are left to the next chapter.
- CHAPTER V
This chapter follows Jane's departure from Gateshead on 19 January and her first day at Lowood Institution. Leaving before dawn with Bessie, she recounts the coach journey, her arrival at night, and her introduction to Miss Miller, the morning bell routines, the burnt porridge at breakfast, and the superintendent Miss Temple's surprising bread-and-cheese lunch. A conversation in the garden with an unnamed older girl reveals the school's charity status, its fifteen-pound fees, and the authority of Mr. Brocklehurst. The chapter closes on the girl's silent punishment and Jane's first evening, ending with bread and coffee and bed. It leaves Jane's later relationships at Lowood and Brocklehurst's own conduct to subsequent chapters.
- CHAPTER VI … CHAPTER VII
This section covers Jane's first months at Lowood school, from her enrolment in the fourth class through the winter of hardship and the arrival of Mr. Brocklehurst. It follows her conversation with Helen Burns by the schoolroom fire, where Helen argues for patient endurance, forgiveness, and a Christian creed of hope, while Jane insists that unjust punishment must be resisted. It then describes the cold, hunger, and chilblains of daily routine, and the public humiliation of Julia Severn's curls and of Jane herself, who is placed on a stool and branded a liar before the school. The chapter ends with Helen's smile as she passes, and with her earlier punishment for a blotted exercise. It does not yet reach Jane's later years at Lowood or her departure, and it leaves Mrs. Reed's further role and Jane's own history to other chapters.
- CHAPTER VIII … CHAPTER IX
This section, covering Chapters VIII and IX of Jane Eyre, opens with Jane alone and weeping on the schoolroom floor after the public humiliation of being branded a liar by Mr. Brocklehurst, and ends with the death of Helen Burns during the typhus outbreak at Lowood. Between those points, Miss Temple summons Jane to her room, hears her account of the Reed household, and clears her name once Mr. Lloyd's letter confirms it. Helen's counsel that faith in an invisible, benevolent God outweighs earthly opinion is set against Jane's desire for human love. The chapter also covers Jane's rapid academic progress, the arrival of spring, and the illness that turns Lowood into a hospital. It stops at Helen's burial and the grey marble tablet inscribed "Resurgam." Jane's later life and her relationship with Mr. Rochester are not touched here.
- CHAPTER X
Chapter X covers the eight years Jane spends at Lowood after the typhus epidemic and the reforms that followed it, a span the narrator deliberately passes over in near silence. It opens with the public inquiry into the school's unhealthy conditions and the new committee of benevolent overseers who share Mr. Brocklehurst's authority. The chapter then turns to Jane's own growth from pupil to teacher and her restlessness after Miss Temple marries and leaves. Its main movement is Jane's night-long resolve to seek "a new servitude": she composes an advertisement for a governess post, sends it to the ——shire Herald, and receives the reply from Mrs. Fairfax of Thornfield, near Millcote. The chapter closes with a surprise visit from Bessie Lee, who brings news of Gateshead, including the Reeds' affairs and a visit years earlier by Jane's uncle Mr. Eyre. It ends as Jane leaves Lowton by coach. Thornfield itself, Mr. Rochester, and the events there belong to the following chapters.
- CHAPTER XI
Chapter XI opens with Jane arriving alone at the George Inn in Millcote, anxious because no one has come to meet her, and ends with her first breakfast at Thornfield and the discovery of the household's arrangements, including the tour of the house and the unexplained laugh from the third-storey passage. It establishes Mrs. Fairfax as a kind, modest housekeeper rather than the owner, introduces the French-speaking ward Adèle Varens and her nurse Sophie, and records Jane's brief, unsatisfying account of the absent master, Mr. Rochester. The chapter leaves Rochester's character and return, and the identity of the laugher Grace Poole, for later chapters. The conclusion is that Thornfield at first seems welcoming and orderly, while its gloomy upper floors and the strange laugh hint at secrets yet to be revealed.
- CHAPTER XII
This chapter of Jane Eyre covers Jane's first months as governess at Thornfield Hall, from the settled routine of her work with Adèle and Mrs. Fairfax through to the evening Mr. Rochester's horse falls on the icy lane near Hay. It opens with a summary of her pupil, her companions and the household staff, then turns to Jane's restless longing for wider experience and her reflections on women's need for active employment. Grace Poole's laugh and odd murmurs are noted as unexplained. The chapter closes with Jane's meeting with the injured, unnamed traveller, whom she helps mount his horse, and her return to a house now lit with his arrival. It stops at the moment of his return; his identity, the cause of his mood, and the mystery of Grace Poole are left for later chapters.
- CHAPTER XIII
This chapter of Jane Eyre opens the morning after Mr. Rochester's sprain, when Adèle and Jane are displaced from the library to make room for the agent and tenants, and it closes with Mrs. Fairfax's vague account of Rochester's family troubles, the estrangement from his elder brother and his restless absences from Thornfield. Between those points, Rochester summons Jane to tea, interrogates her about Lowood, her parentage and her age, and examines her portfolio of watercolours (the drowned corpse with the bracelet, the Evening Star, the iceberg head). Rochester's abrupt, teasing manner and Jane's composed replies are the chapter's central business. It hands over to later chapters without resolving the mystery of his past, the "painful thoughts" Mrs. Fairfax only guesses at, or the identity of the box of presents he promised Adèle.
- CHAPTER XIV
This chapter covers a series of evenings in which Mr. Rochester, recovering from his sprain and largely absent during the day, summons Jane and Adèle to the dining-room after a dinner party. Adèle opens a long-awaited box of presents, and Rochester, in an expansive after-dinner mood, draws Jane into a conversation that moves from her plainness and his unattractive forehead to his own sense of past degeneration, his "India-rubber" heart, and his resolve to take pleasure "cost what it may." Jane answers his probing with dry candour, insisting that a memory free of blot is the truest treasure and that a new law of conduct cannot make wrong right. The talk ends when Adèle returns in a rose-coloured frock and Rochester, tracing her resemblance to her dancer mother Céline Varens, calls her a "French floweret" he would rather be rid of, and Jane leaves for bed. The chapter does not resolve Adèle's parentage or the secret Rochester hints at, which he promises to explain later; those matters belong to later chapters.
- CHAPTER XV
Chapter XV opens with Mr. Rochester, on a beech avenue within sight of Adèle, explaining her parentage: she is the daughter of the opera-dancer Céline Varens, whom he had once loved and financially indulged before discovering her betrayal with a young vicomte. He recounts the balcony episode, the duel that wounded the vicomte, and his decision to take Adèle from Paris to England. The chapter then turns to Jane's reflections on Rochester's changed manner toward her and her growing affection for him, before a night disturbed by a demoniac laugh and a fire in his bedroom, which Jane extinguishes with water. Rochester's response is guarded, and he refuses to summon the household, saying only that Grace Poole is "singular." The chapter ends at dawn with Jane restless and unable to sleep; the identity of the fire-setter and the fuller nature of Rochester's secret are left for later chapters.
- CHAPTER XVI
Chapter XVI covers the morning after the night of the burning bed, when Jane, who had heard a strange laugh and was still uneasy from the night before, watches for Mr. Rochester but does not see him. Instead she meets Grace Poole sewing in the bedroom, as calm and unreadable as ever, and their guarded exchange about the fire, the bolted door and the household's sleeping arrangements leaves Jane convinced Grace is hiding something. Jane then reasons about why Rochester tolerates such a servant, and by evening she learns from Mrs. Fairfax that he has ridden off to the Leas, where the Ingram ladies, especially the beautiful Blanche, are among the guests. The chapter ends with Jane's stern self-rebuke and her resolution to paint her own portrait beside an imagined one of Blanche. It leaves the later Ingram visit and Grace's secret for subsequent chapters.
- CHAPTER XVII
Chapter XVII opens a week after Mr. Rochester's departure, with no word from him, and Jane's attempt to talk herself out of disappointment by recalling her station as governess. It runs through the three days of frantic preparation at Thornfield for a house party, Mrs. Fairfax's letter announcing his return with guests, and Jane's glimpse of Grace Poole's secretive habits and savings, which Leah and a charwoman discuss as a mystery Jane is excluded from. The chapter closes on the evening of the party: Jane smuggles food from the kitchen, watches the ladies descend, and then enters the drawing-room with Adèle. She observes Miss Ingram, the Eshtons, Lady Lynn, Mrs. Dent and the Ingram matrons, and Mr. Rochester's flirtatious exchanges with Blanche Ingram. Jane concludes she loves him despite herself. The chapter ends with Rochester noticing her distress in the hall and ordering her to attend the drawing-room nightly. The wider plot of the Rochester–Ingram courtship and the mystery of the third storey is taken up in later chapters.
- CHAPTER XVIII
This chapter of Jane Eyre opens with the household at Thornfield Hall in merry, busy spirits after a spell of wet weather, and closes with the post-chaise arrival of Mr. Mason and the gipsy fortune-teller episode, with Jane slipping away to consult her last. Its central question is how Jane, as a dependent governess, experiences the house's gaieties, chiefly the charades and the parlour entertainments, and what she comes to understand of her feelings for Mr. Rochester as he courts Blanche Ingram. The narrative moves from the staged charades (Rebecca and Eliezer, the Bridewell scene) through the company's chatter, to Jane's analysis of Blanche's coldness and of Rochester's guarded, unpassionate courtship. It concludes that Jane cannot unlove him, though she is not truly jealous of Blanche, whom she regards as beneath jealousy. The chapter introduces Mr. Mason, Rochester's old acquaintance from Jamaica, and Adèle's role in the charade, but leaves the stranger's significance and the gipsy's prophecy to the following chapter.
- CHAPTER XIX
Chapter XIX of Jane Eyre opens with Jane entering the library to meet a fortune-telling gipsy, a woman in a red cloak and broad-brimmed hat who smokes a short black pipe and reads palms and faces. She tells Jane she is "cold," "sick," and "silly," because she lives alone, shuns the affection that might warm her, and will not reach toward the happiness waiting for her. The gipsy then dwells on Mr. Rochester's courtship with Miss Ingram, whom the guests urge on him, and on his apparent gratitude for their attentions. The chapter turns when the disguise is removed and Mr. Rochester is revealed. It ends with news that a stranger, Mr. Mason from Jamaica, has arrived; Rochester is shaken, asks Jane to fetch him wine, and sends her to bring Mason to the library. The chapter closes as the guests retire, with Jane falling asleep. Grace Poole and the mysterious events upstairs are only glanced at here.
- CHAPTER XX
Chapter XX of Jane Eyre follows Jane's awakening in the dead of night to a shriek and a struggle in the third storey of Thornfield Hall, and ends at dawn as Mr. Rochester sends the wounded Mr. Mason away in a post-chaise. Jane is summoned to nurse Mason, whose arm and shoulder are bitten and bleeding, while Rochester keeps the adjoining chamber sealed and Grace Poole's laughter is heard behind the door. Jane's unease grows over the mystery of the hidden woman, Mason's submissiveness, and Rochester's dismay at the stranger's arrival. The chapter closes with Rochester's garden conversation, in which he poses a hypothetical about a repentant wanderer seeking regeneration through a new companion, then abruptly turns to his love for Miss Ingram. The secret of the attic prisoner itself is left unexplained here.
- CHAPTER XXI
This chapter opens with Jane's reflections on presentiments, sympathies and signs, prompted by a recurring dream of a infant that she links to Bessie Leaven's childhood superstition. It then turns to the news brought by Robert Leaven: John Reed is dead after a ruinous life, and his mother, Mrs. Reed, has had a stroke and is asking for Jane. Jane asks Mr. Rochester for leave, and he gives her money, teases her over farewells, and finally lets her go. At Gateshead she finds Bessie, the transformed cousins Eliza and Georgiana, and her dying aunt, whose letter from John Eyre, Jane's uncle in Madeira, reveals Mrs. Reed's concealment of the inheritance. The chapter stops at Mrs. Reed's death the next morning, and does not follow Jane's return to Thornfield or Mr. Rochester's proposal, which lie in later chapters.
- CHAPTER XXII … CHAPTER XXIII
This section opens with Jane's return from Gateshead after her aunt Mrs. Reed's death and the sisters' departures, and closes with the thunderstorm night in which Mr. Rochester proposes and Jane accepts him. Its main thread is Jane's reluctance to leave Thornfield, her dread of the planned marriage to Blanche Ingram, and her confrontation with Rochester in the orchard, where she insists on equality and he declares he has no true love for Miss Ingram. Key terms include Gateshead, Thornfield, Millcote, Bitternutt Lodge in Ireland, Adèle, Mrs. Fairfax, and the horse-chestnut tree. The chapter stops at the morning after the storm, leaving the public consequences of the engagement, and the revelation of Bertha Mason, to later chapters.
- CHAPTER XXIV
This chapter opens the morning after Mr. Rochester's proposal, with Jane dressing in a bright mood and finding the world renewed. It follows her first exchanges with him as an accepted fiancé: his embrace, his plan to shower her with jewels, travel to Europe, and a wedding in four weeks, and Jane's resistance to all of it on grounds of pride and independence. It narrates her unsettling talk with Mrs. Fairfax, who doubts the match and warns her about his station, the drive to Millcote where Jane resists being dressed like a doll, and the evening song in which Rochester declares his love. The chapter ends with Jane deliberately keeping him at a distance and admitting that her love for him has become almost a substitute for religious faith. Jane's uncle John Eyre, Adèle, and the lunar fairy-tale play are also present. Later courtship and the wedding itself lie beyond this chapter.
- CHAPTER XXV
Chapter XXV covers the last evening before Jane's wedding to Mr. Rochester, set against the wedding preparations: her trunks are packed, and the cards addressed "Mrs. Rochester" remain unaffixed. Jane, restless and uneasy, goes out into the wind-torn grounds, inspects the split chestnut-tree, and waits at the gates for Rochester's return from his business thirty miles away. When he arrives, she confides the troubling events of the previous night: a dream of a crumbling Thornfield and a dreary road, and then a waking vision of a tall, dark, purple-faced woman who tore her wedding veil and trampled it. Rochester explains the episode as a half-dream and attributes the figure to Grace Poole, promising to explain Grace's place in the house after a year of marriage. The chapter ends at dawn, as Jane leaves little Adèle and rises to meet the day. The wedding itself, the return to Thornfield, and the explanation of Grace Poole are left to later chapters.
- CHAPTER XXVI
This chapter of Jane Eyre covers the wedding morning at Thornfield, from Jane's dressing and the walk to the church through the objection of Mr. Briggs, the solicitor, and Richard Mason, to Mr. Rochester's confession that he has a living wife, Bertha Antoinetta Mason, kept in the third-storey room under Grace Poole's watch. It shows the wedding halted at the words "impediment," Rochester's defiant display of Bertha to the gentlemen, and his dismissal of the household. It ends with Jane alone in her room, her hopes and faith in Rochester collapsed, and her prayer overwhelmed by the flood of despair. It stops before any decision about where she will go, and the chapter that follows, Chapter XXVII, takes up her departure from Thornfield.
- CHAPTER XXVII（第 1/2 部分）
This chapter (the first half of Chapter XXVII of *Jane Eyre*) opens with Jane alone in her room, asking "What am I to do?" and wrestling with a voice urging her to "Leave Thornfield at once," before Rochester finds her and carries her downstairs. It moves through their confrontation: Jane refuses his kiss, and he confesses his past, describing his marriage to Bertha Mason, the family's concealment of her madness, his years of shame, and his decision to keep her hidden at Thornfield under Grace Poole's care. Jane's pity and her refusal to become his mistress frame the scene. The chapter ends mid-confession, with Rochester's account of the attack that threatened him and his feverish vow about her. Jane's flight and the wedding-veil episode belong to the second half.
- CHAPTER XXVII（第 2/2 部分）
This section of Chapter XXVII is Rochester's confession and Jane's refusal, and it runs from his account of his years abroad through his plea that she become his mistress to her flight from Thornfield at dawn. He recounts how he sought a suitable woman across Europe, took mistresses (Céline Varens, Giacinta, Clara), and came to love Jane while watching her in the gallery and the schoolroom. He argues that a mad wife and the law no longer bind him and begs her to "give me your promise." Jane refuses on principle, holding to the law and her own self-respect, then leaves quietly, carrying only a parcel and twenty shillings, and takes a coach away from Thornfield. The chapter ends with her anguish on the road. Her later life, the Rivers family and Rochester's fate after her departure, are left to Chapter XXVIII and beyond.
- CHAPTER XXVIII
Chapter XXVIII of Jane Eyre follows Jane after she leaves Thornfield and reaches the north-midland moors, carrying no money. It opens at Whitcross, a stone signpost where her coach leaves her penniless, and it traces her night on the heath, her hunger, and her repeated refusals at the village shops, a farmhouse, a cottage and the parsonage, where she is turned away for want of work or any claim on strangers. The chapter reaches its turning point when a light draws her to a house where Diana, Mary and St. John Rivers are reading German; Hannah, the old servant, first refuses her at the door, but St. John admits her, and the sisters feed and shelter her. The chapter stops with Jane put to bed and asleep, and it leaves unexplained her identity, her history with Mr. Rochester, and the Rivers family's fuller story, which later chapters take up.
- CHAPTER XXIX
Chapter XXIX of Jane Eyre follows Jane's collapse after her flight from Thornfield, covering roughly three days of delirium in the Rivers household at Moor House, from her near-death on the moor to her first recovered day downstairs. Jane describes her hazy sense of time, the servant Hannah's initial suspicion, and the sisters Diana and Mary's sympathetic remarks, while St. John Rivers diagnoses nervous exhaustion and judges her face "rather unusual" but not vulgar. Once recovered, Jane helps Hannah bake, wins her respect by insisting on dignity rather than beggary, and learns the family history: old Mr. Rivers's death, the clergyman St. John's plans, and the sisters' need for work as governesses. In the parlour, St. John presses Jane for her history, and she gives an account of Lowood and her departure, while withholding her real name and the reason for leaving Thornfield, and asks only for honest work. The chapter ends with St. John agreeing to help in his own time; it stops before any employment is found, which the following chapter takes up.
- CHAPTER XXX
Chapter XXX of Jane Eyre opens with Jane recovering at Moor House, where she finds real congeniality with Diana and Mary Rivers in reading, drawing, and the love of the moors, and it closes with the sisters and their brother St. John departing and Moor House being abandoned. Its central business is Jane's arrangement of her future: St. John, who is reserved and seems restless within his calling, offers her the mistress's post at a village girls' school in Morton, a humble but independent position, which she accepts. Along the way the chapter sketches St. John's character through his sermon, which conveys bitterness and an unquiet spirit rather than peace, and it reports the news of the uncle's death, whose £20,000 fortune went to a different relation, leaving the Rivers children only thirty guineas for mourning rings. The chapter does not yet reveal the cousin's identity or St. John's proposal of marriage, which belong to later chapters.
- CHAPTER XXXI … CHAPTER XXXII
This section opens with Jane settled in her cottage at Morton, running a village school, and closes with her discovering the sketch and the portrait episode with St. John Rivers. It covers her first day as schoolmistress, her reflections on choosing honest labour over Rochester's love in Marseilles, and her growing acceptance among the villagers. It then turns to Rosamond Oliver's visits and Mr. Oliver's approval of Jane's work, and to the 5 November afternoon when Jane probes St. John's hidden feelings for Rosamond, which he admits in a confession. The chapter concludes with St. John calling himself "a cold hard man" ambitious for his missionary calling, and leaving with a slip torn from the margin of Jane's paper. Its later consequences, and the question of the missionary's eventual fate, are left to following chapters.
- CHAPTER XXXIII
Chapter XXXIII opens on the night of St. John Rivers's unexpected visit to Jane's cottage in the snowbound valley, where he sits by the fire and speaks in a strange, withdrawn manner before revealing the purpose of his errand. It moves from his enigmatic story of the curate, the rich man's daughter, and the orphan Jane Eyre, through the discovery that Jane has inherited her uncle John Eyre's fortune of twenty thousand pounds, to the revelation that she and St. John, Diana and Mary are cousins. Jane's joy at finding kin gives way to her insistence on dividing the legacy equally among the four, a dispute settled by arbitration with Mr. Oliver and a lawyer. The chapter ends with each cousin holding a competency; Jane's return to Thornfield, her reunion with Rochester, and the fate of Bertha lie outside it, as does the question of St. John's marriage plans.
- CHAPTER XXXIV（第 1/2 部分）
This opening portion of Chapter XXXIV covers Jane's departure from Morton school and her settling at Moor House with her cousins Diana and Mary and St. John Rivers, through the Christmas week and into the following months. It opens with the farewell to her pupils and the preparation of the house for her cousins' return, including St. John's cool response to her domestic enthusiasm. It then develops his growing influence over her: he announces Rosamond Oliver's engagement to Mr. Granby, asks Jane to study Hindostanee with him, and gives her an "experiment kiss" that she submits to. The section ends with Jane's unresolved anxiety over her unanswered letters to Mrs. Fairfax about Mr. Rochester, which leaves her in thrall to St. John's wishes. Rochester's fate and her eventual return to him are left to the later part of the chapter.
- CHAPTER XXXIV（第 2/2 部分）
This second half of Chapter XXXIV, set on a bright May morning, centres on St. John Rivers's proposal that Jane accompany him to India as his wife and fellow-missionary. It opens after Jane, weeping over a disappointing letter from Mr. Briggs, is taken by St. John to the head of Marsh Glen, where he announces his departure in six weeks on an East Indiaman. The argument develops as he appeals to God's service, catalogues Jane's qualities as proven through their months together, and insists that only marriage can make their partnership permanent. Jane's inner debate weighs the work against the prospect of a loveless marriage and early death, and she concludes she will go only as his sister and comrade, not his wife. St. John grants her a fortnight's reflection before leaving for Cambridge. The chapter ends with their cold parting that night. Jane's grief for Mr. Rochester is present but not explored in depth here.
- CHAPTER XXXV
This chapter of Jane Eyre opens with St. John Rivers withholding his departure for Cambridge for a week and treating Jane with cold, pointed withdrawal after she refused to marry him. It turns on their final confrontation in the garden, where Jane states she will not marry him because "you almost hate me," and St. John responds with chilled reproof, then recasts her offer to go to India as his curate as improper. The chapter develops through Jane's conversation with Diana, in which Jane explains that St. John views her only as a useful tool and that a marriage would crush her, followed by St. John's solemn evening reading of Revelation and prayer, which leaves Jane wavering. It concludes with Jane hearing Rochester's voice calling her name across the moors, an episode she takes as a supernatural summons, and resolving to act on it at daylight. The chapter stops there, carrying the Rochester thread forward; St. John's later life and the outcome of Jane's search are left to subsequent chapters.
- CHAPTER XXXVI
Chapter XXXVI of Jane Eyre opens on the morning after St. John's proposal, with Jane leaving Moor House and St. John's note urging her to decide when he returns. She resolves to go back to Thornfield, travelling by coach from Whitcross and walking the last two miles across the fields. The chapter's narrative moves from her anxious approach, through her fear of learning the worst, to her encounter with the innkeeper at the Rochester Arms, a former butler at Thornfield. He reports the fire set by the mad Bertha Rochester, her death in the fall from the battlements, and Rochester's blinding and loss of a hand while rescuing the servants. Rochester now lives at Ferndean with John and his wife. The chapter ends with Jane ordering a chaise to take her there before nightfall. Her reunion with Rochester is left to the next chapter.
- CHAPTER XXXVII
Chapter XXXVII of Jane Eyre covers Jane's arrival at Ferndean, the isolated manor-house in a dark wood where the blinded Mr. Rochester now lives with John and Mary. Jane walks the last mile through the rain, sees Rochester alone on the step, and watches him grope about, unseen, before she enters the parlour with the candle tray. Their reunion unfolds in the dim room: he first doubts she is real, then embraces her, and she reveals her inheritance of five thousand pounds and her intention to stay as his nurse and companion. Their conversation turns on St. John Rivers, Rochester's jealousy, and Jane's refusal of his proposal, ending with Rochester's confession of the midnight call "Jane! Jane! Jane!" and Jane's decision to marry him. The chapter stops with the couple walking home through the wood; the wedding arrangements and the later years at Ferndean fall to the following chapter.