Tears came to Rebekah’s eyes. “I thought you brought it here to keep it from Keturah.”

“I brought it here,” he said, “so it could be the home of the woman most precious to me, as it has been all my life.”

“I hope,” said Rebekah. “With all my heart I hope. That I will be precious to you.”

“You already are,” said Isaac. “God has gone to great pains to choose a wife for me. I’d have to be a fool not to love the gift as well as the giver.”

Rebekah reached up, untied the neck-binding of the veil, and pulled it off over her head. If her face had been grimy before she put it on, it was now streaked with sweat, and hair that had been windblown before was now matted and wet. “You see me at my worst, sir,” she said. “But how could a stranger enter your mother’s tent?”

“I promise you, she cleans up nicely,” said Eliezer.

Isaac reached out and took a bead of sweat from her cheek with the back of one finger. His touch was gentle, yet her skin tingled where he touched her. “My wife will see me sweaty with work or filthy from travel, and I will see her that way many times as well. And we’ll see each other at our best, too. But never will she be more beautiful to me than she is this moment. I see nothing but goodness in your face. That is your beauty, Rebekah.”

Quite before she realized it, tears streamed down her face. Of relief. Of . . . no, it was too soon for love. But of gratitude, yes, and admiration for the perfect kindness of his words, of the gesture of letting her dwell in his mother’s tent. And also because she thrilled at the way her name sounded when it came from his lips. “Oh, Isaac,” she said. “Did those words . . . did the Lord give them to you?”

“No, sorry,” said Isaac.

“Don’t be sorry,” said Rebekah. “I hoped they were your own.”

He took her by the hand and led her to a small altar built of fitted stones. No bullocks could have been sacrificed here, it was too small, and besides, the stones looked new-cut, and there was no staining of ashes. Still holding her hand, Isaac knelt across the altar from her, and with very simple words promised her she would be his wife forever. Then he told her the words she was to say to him, and she said them. With only Deborah and Eliezer as their witnesses, while the rest of the camp was busy installing Rebekah’s maids in their tent and unloading and caring for the camels, Isaac said the words that bound them together in a marriage with no end. Her sons, he added, would be his only heirs, as he was the only heir of his father.