Jane Eyre

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Rochester, a young Englishman touring the West Indies, meets Bertha Mason, a beautiful girl, in Spanish Town, Jamaica. The courtship ends speedily in marriage. After the wedding Rochester makes the horrible discovery that his bride's mother is demented, and later, by chance, her brother learns that she has inherited the taint. Rochester, crushed by the realization, brings his unfortunate wife to England and establishes her in his ancestral home, under care of a nurse who secretly indulges in drink. He has a young ward, Adele, for whom he engages a governess, Jane Eyre. Rochester falls in love with Jane and asks her to be his wife. Learning from his lawyer that English law does not recognize his wife's lunacy as ground for divorce, he resolves to keep her existence a secret and to marry Jane, trusting to the future for justification. But fate, in the person of Jane's cousin, intervenes and the ceremony is interrupted. Rochester endeavors to justify himself, but Jane will not hear him and determines to go out of his life. Shortly after she has left the house, Bertha contrives to bind the nurse and, with a candle, sets fire to the house. Rochester saves Adele and the nurse, but is himself overcome and rescued by his groom. The tire blinds him. Bertha, with a maniacal stream plunges from the root of the blazing building and is killed. Jane learns of the tragedy and returning filled with pity for Rochester, brings him the consolation he needs.