Why does Jane leave Rochester after the interrupted wedding?

Jane leaves because staying would make her Rochester’s mistress, not his wife. She loves him, and Brontë does not pretend the choice is easy — Jane is nearly broken by it. What she will not do is trade the self-respect she has defended since childhood for a passionate illegality that still leaves Bertha imprisoned overhead.

The departure is moral and social at once. As a governess without money, “living with him” would put Jane in a dependency sharper than Gateshead’s. Rochester’s suffering does not erase the deception that made the courtship possible. Readers who want the romance to override the law are hearing the temptation the chapter is built to resist. The later reunion works only because Jane returns free: Bertha is dead, Jane has kin and fortune, and the “yes” is no longer an escape from poverty.