Sir, your wife is living: that is a fact acknowledged this morning by yourself. If I lived with you as you desire, I should then be your mistress.
– Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre, Chapter 27. Jane says this to Rochester after she learns that he has a wife. A highly moral person, Jane doesn’t want to be Rochester’s mistress. The course of true love doesn’t run smoothly in Bronte’s novel, it is the story of a tortured and tumultous love affair. Rochester is distressed by Jane’s words.