Actually, she wanted people to weep and tear their clothes because she wouldn’t be with them anymore, but she knew that was out of the question. I’m being a selfish, petty child, she told herself. What is there to be sad about? I’m not dying, I’m going to be married, as noble a marriage as there can be, and I was chosen as Isaac’s bride, not by the calculations of men, but by the will of God. It’s what I was praying for only this evening. Everything is perfect.

She was able to keep a good face on things until she saw two of the women burst into tears and throw their arms around Deborah. “Oh, you darling, how we’ll miss you!” “Nothing will be the same with you gone!” On and on.

In all her life, Rebekah had never been jealous of Deborah. And she did not begrudge her sweet nurse the generous affection of the women of the camp. It was simply . . . it was just that . . .

She murmured something to her mother about needing to see to something in her tent, and fled.

Not to her tent. If someone came looking for her, she did not want to be found. Instead she went by a roundabout way to the pen where Eliezer’s camels were resting. The faintest light of day was still in the sky. There would be moonlight tonight, so the celebration could go on for a while longer; but the cool breeze from the desert promised a chilly night.

The camels noticed her coming, but cared little. Tears may have flowed down her cheeks as she walked here, but now, looking at the lumpen faces of these beasts, she had to laugh. All it took, she realized, was thinking of something other than myself.

“Are you that eager to go?” asked Eliezer.

Only then did she see that Abraham’s steward was inside the pen, using a wooden comb to work something out of the hair on a camel’s flank.

“In fact I am,” said Rebekah. “But no, I didn’t think of leaving tonight.”

“They let you leave the feast? It’s your farewell, isn’t it?”

“I thought it was your welcome.”

Eliezer laughed.

The silence between them soon weighed too much to bear.

“I hope you know that I didn’t accept your proposal because of the jewelry.”

“There’d be nothing shameful if you had,” said Eliezer. “My master’s wealth and reputation will mean your children will grow up with every protection, every opportunity.”

Rebekah understood this. “I just wanted you to know my eyes were not dazzled.”

“So if it wasn’t the jewelry, what was it? I wasn’t a bad-looking man in my youth, but age has done its work on my face, so I know it wasn’t my beauty.”

“Just as I know it wasn’t mine.”