Jane Eyre, who has been an ardent, expectant woman – almost a bride – was a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were desolate…I looked at my love; that feeling which was my master’s – which he had created; it shivered in my heart, like a suffering child in a cold cradle; sickness and anguish had seized it; it could not seek Mr. Rochester’s arms – it could not derive warmth from his breast. Oh, never more could it turn to him; for faith was blighted – confidence destroyed! Mr. Rochester was not to me what he had been, for he was not what I had thought him. I would not ascribe vice to him; I would not say he had betrayed me; but the attribute of stainless truth was gone from his idea, and from his presence I must go: THAT I perceived well.

– Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre, Chapter 26. Jane speaks about herself in the third person, so deeply affected is she by her ordeal. She has learned that Mr. Rochester cannot marry her because he is already married. Rochester has gone from being her religious idol to someone sadly too human. Following his deception she feels alone and lost once more. Using a simile, she likens the love she has for Rochester to a sick and anguished child suffering in a cold cradle. She refuses to label him a betrayer or wicked, but says that he failed her by being less than truthful. Jane’s moral principles have decided that she must leave him.