The San Francisco call., 1898-01-25
THE WIDOW
 IS BLIND TO
 HER SHAME Talks Unfeelingly of Her Misdoings Of
 the Past. Her Children Allowed to Read Accounts of Her
 Duplicity. Half-Hearted Declaration That She Wants the Murderer
 Punished. NO LONGER LOVES HIM. Says She Told Him She Would Be- tray Him if He Killed Her
 Husband.
Half-Hearted Declaration That She Wants the Murderer
 Punished.
NO LONGER LOVES HIM.
Says She Told Him She Would Be- tray Him if He Killed Her
 Husband.
Special Dispatch to The Call.

Special Dispatch to The Call
 NAPA, Jan. 24.-Ii you had seen Mrs. Clark in the streets of St. Helena a week ago, the last thought in the world to occur to you in connection with this middle-aged woman would be that for her one brother would kill another.
 And yet George Clark had already tried twice to poison his brother, and was planning the third attack-the suc- cessful one.
 But do you know what?" said Mrs. Clark to-day. He didn't kill my hus- band thinking he'd get me- for he knew he wouldn't. I'd told him, an he knows better than to say anything different. I'd told him that I wouldn't have him."
 Mrs. Clark speaks now in that re- signed falsetto that women in trouble adopt. Occasionally her voice grows firm, and she seems really in earnest when she gives vent to her condemna- tion of the man whose crime is the one topic of conversation all through the valley.
 George I says to him, when he'd ask me if I'd have him if something was to happen to my husband, don't you think of murder. I'd hunt you down all over tbe world to have you punished an so I would, an he knows it."
 Then, you'd have him hanged if you could?"
 "Why, course I would" Mrs. Clark said, the complaining voice becoming suddenly strong.
 l really believe she would The art ists who have sketched this woman have borne in mind too strongly the vileness of her life. Not that she Is at all prepossessing. Far from It. She looks merely like an ignorant, weak, slatternly woman; but fail to find in her big face, with its prominent cheek bones, evidences of moral monstrosity one would expect to find there. Mrs. Clark is above the average woman's height. She is strong and stout. Her hair is sandy and scant; her eyes are small and blue-that dull dingy color which is blue with the life left out They are not eyes one can imagine smiling or weeping. They are merely organs through which the animal peers out into the world. Her fiorid face has been exposed to wind and weather. She has a weak, cleft chin and rather straight nose. Her neck is full and fat. Not Helen, surely; merely an instance of the merciful provision which does not record all ones sins on ones face
 The Clarks are moving to-day. They are quitting their cheap little home where that horrible double menage endured, and intend to live two blocks farther up Pine street. It is to be hoped that this change of residence is due'to a remnant of sensitivenesS in placid Mrs. Clark; but it is to be doubted.
 No woman is attractive when she is moving. I saw Mrs. Clark at her un- loveliest. She was tacking down mat ting in the new house, while in the old. dismantled place, gathered about knot of wood, which was blazing in the grate, were the younger children. Rocking a great baby. her niece, to sleep was a flaxen-haired girl of about 12, gentle little thing, who cuddled the baby most materially, while she sang a lullaby in a high, girlish so- prano. One of the most unaccountable things about this most unaccountable, vile story is that there should be sing ing in the Clark house to-day. Mrs. Clark would prefer not to speak further of the shameful tale, so she says. She tells you that she is worn out; that she hasn't eaten anything since the murder. Yet Mrs. Clark's self-pitying tone assures one that she will not, does not suffer.
 ''The only thing that I regret" she | said, standing in the bare, unfurnished room, Ifs that didn't have him ar rested after he'd tried that second time to poison my husband. Then the whole story'd ha' come out, but I'd ha' had Will with me to take care of me and the children"
 | Even this. you see, is a personal re- gret; a feeling that she had acted un- | wisely for her own comfort. | T told Will then that he was in dan | ger, an told George that the one Will suspicioned would be punished. told | him that some had said 1t was me that | put the poison in his lunch can, and I told him wouldn't rest and have peo- pie suspicion me. When Will heard 1t what people was saying about me he got mad, and said he was goin' | down street to knock down the first man that'd dare 10 say it of me-
 And yet from Mrs. Clarks admission that her husband was aware of her dishonor, one wouldn't imagine the | dead man to have been so chivalrous.
 'The reason George Clark killed my husband was cause Will had forbid him the house, cause he was jealous l of my husband. He knew I'd never