Life is harsh at Lowood (Children of God ), but here Jane meets two people who will have a great influence on her: a kind and caring teacher, Miss Temple, and a fellow-student, Helen Burns, from whom she learns the virtues of forgiveness and faith (Forgiveness, My Maker).

Jane grows up to become a teacher at Lowood. She advertieses for a position and is offered employment by Mrs. Fairfax, housekeeper of Thornfield Hall (Perfectly Nice ) as governess to Adele Varens, young ward of the absent master of Thornfield, Edward Rochester.

Rochester returns to Thornfield and questions Jane about her past. As the weeks go by, he begins to reveal some of his own secrets (As Good As You). Despite his gruff and cynical manner, Jane finds herself drawn to him. A fire in the house leads her to suspect that Thornfield and its master harbour a dark secret.

Jane is beginning to fall in love with Rochester when she learns that he plans to marry the beautiful, wealthy Blanch Ingram. When Blanche arrives with her family and friends for an extended stay (Perfect Match), Jane paints portraits of herself and Blanche (Painting Her Portrait) as a reminder to herself of her lowly station in life and of the unbridgeable gulf between Rochester's world and her own.

The visit of a mysterious stranger, Richard Mason intensifies Jane's curiosity about the secrets of Rochester's life. Both Jane and Rochester admit privately to their growing love for one another (Secret Soul ).

Act 2
Jane is haunted by a dream that seems to speak of the past, but may refer as well to the present and the future (Dream of a Child ).

Rochester's aristocratic friends remain in the house, now bored and listless. Rochester dons a disguise in order to test and compare the characters of Blanche and Jane (The Gypsy).

Jane is summoned to the bedside of the dying Mrs. Reed, where she learns that she has an uncle, John Eyre, who has been trying to find her. She returns to Thornfield to discover that the engagement of Rochester and Blance has been called off (Second Self). Rochester declares his love for Jane and asks her to marry him. Mrs. Fairfax initially opposes the match, but is won over (Slip of a Girl ).

On the day of the wedding, Jane's happiness is shattered when the secret of the house is finally revealed. Unable to proceed with the marriage, Jane flees Thornfield and Rochester mourns her departure (Farewell, Good Angel).

Days later, Jane is rescued, sick and starving, on the moors by a young pastor, St. John Rivers, and his sisters. As the Rivers family nurses Jane back to health, St. John asks her to marry him and go with him to India, as a missionary (Morton). Jane is about to accept when she hears the voice of Rochester calling her across the miles of desolate moorland that separate them. She hurries back to Thornfield (A Silence I Hear) to find the house a ruin, destroyed by fire. Rochester, in attempting to rescue those in the house, has been blinded. Jane finds him living at nearby Ferndean Manor. The lovers are reunited, never to part again (Brave Enough for Love).