The Mystery of the Third Floor — Jane Eyre

Jane wakes to moonlight and is jolted by a savage scream from the third floor, followed by struggle and a voice crying for Rochester. The house erupts. Rochester appears from above with a candle and tells the panicked guests it is a mere rehearsal of Much Ado about Nothing: an excitable servant had a nightmare. He sends everyone back to bed. Jane does not believe him. She dresses and waits by her window until the house falls silent. Rochester taps at her door, leads her quietly to the third storey, and asks whether she can bear the sight of blood. Behind a concealed door Grace Poole laughs; Rochester speaks to her briefly, then shows Jane Mason sitting pale in a chair, his arm and clothing soaked in blood. Rochester tends him, then leaves Jane alone with Mason for one or two hours with strict orders: sponge the blood, use the salts if he faints, and speak to him on no pretext. Mason must not speak to her either. Jane spends the night locked in that room, a murderess separated from her only by a door, watching the wounded man and the apostles on the tapestry while listening for Grace Poole.

At dawn Rochester returns with the surgeon Carter. Mason murmurs that she has done for him. Carter finds the shoulder torn by teeth, not knife. Mason says she bit and worried him like a tigress when Rochester got the knife from her; she sucked the blood and said she would drain his heart. Rochester shudders and forbids him to repeat her words. He sends Jane on errands for shirt, cloak, and cordial, then has Mason dressed and helped into a waiting post-chaise before the household wakes. Mason weeps and begs Rochester to let her be treated tenderly. Rochester bars the gates and calls Jane into the orchard.

He calls Thornfield a dungeon and the garden real. He offers her a rose, asks whether she was afraid when left with Mason, and says she was safe because he had the key. Jane asks whether Grace Poole will stay and whether his life is secure. He says he lives on a crater-crust that may crack any day; Mason might unintentionally destroy his happiness with one careless word. He cannot warn Mason because Mason must remain ignorant that harm is possible. He calls Jane his little friend and says she has power over him too, yet he dare not show where he is vulnerable. In the arbour he puts a hypothetical case: a repentant man who has committed a capital error abroad seeks reformation through a gentle stranger and asks whether custom may be overleaped. Jane answers that reformation must not depend on a fellow-creature; the sinner must look higher than his equals. Rochester begins to say he has found the instrument for his cure in, then breaks off. His tone turns harsh: she has noticed his tender penchant for Miss Ingram; would marriage to her regenerate him? He sends Jane in by the shrubbery as guests appear, and calls out cheerfully that Mason got the start of them all and was gone before sunrise.