“I know it’s a veil, you wore it during the windstorm on the third day of our journey.”

Deborah was also off her camel, and she helped Rebekah tie the veil in place.

“He’ll think I found him a woman so ugly she has to be hidden from view,” said Eliezer.

“He’ll think what he thinks,” said Rebekah.

“Then again,” said Eliezer, “if he saw you looking as lovely as you did atop that dromedary, he might think that I chose you for beauty alone. This way, he’ll know you couldn’t possibly have been chosen by anyone but God.”

Rebekah knew he was gibing with her, but she could not banter in reply. She was too frightened. This was not how it was supposed to be. She was supposed to come into camp and have a day in her tent before she had to emerge to meet anyone. It was not supposed to be in a field, with him covered with the sweat and dirt of the day’s work, and her grimy with travel, her hair windblown, the inextinguishable stink of camel permeating her clothes.

And yet . . . this had not been an ordinary courtship by any standard. She had accepted him without seeing him, without even hearing his name mentioned, because she knew that it was God’s will. Would he not be just as obedient to the Lord?

I don’t want him to marry me because of obedience, she realized. I want him to marry me for love.

But that was absurd. What was prettiness? Hadn’t she hidden her face for years because she did not want to be loved for a face that happened to have no oversized or misplaced features?

She didn’t know what was right. She only knew that she was afraid, and in the veil she felt safer.

She stood beside Eliezer as Isaac passed among the bean plants. He was a tall man, and slender, though he had the arms of a shepherd—arms that could carry a goat or restrain a sheep for shearing. He was not as young as Ezbaal, but there was no white in his beard or his hair, and he moved with the vigor of youth, leaping over as many rows as he stepped through.  But despite his smile, she saw something sad in his eyes. Why should that be? What sorrow had he known, this man who was born as a miracle?

“Why is he so sorrowful?” she whispered to Eliezer.

“Sorrowful?” he answered. So apparently he didn’t see what she saw in her husband.

“Eliezer,” called Isaac. His voice was deep and rich, his word clear.

“Master!” answered Eliezer. “As you can see, I succeeded in the errand your father sent me on!”