at Dis­trib­uted Proof­read­ers:

…his words had gone to her heart, and she remem­bered how he had embraced her when she first encoun­tered him in the church. His man­ners, too, were so mild, so kind, so pater­nal toward her; and yet he seemed but a few years older than herself.

“You have gazed upon the por­trait of the old man,” he con­tin­ued, “as he appeared on that mem­o­rable evening which sealed his fate!”

Agnes started wildly.

“Yes, sealed his fate, but spared him his life!” said the unknown, emphat­i­cally. “As he is rep­re­sented in that pic­ture, so was he sit­ting mourn­fully over the sorry fire, for the morrow’s renewal of which there was no wood! At that hour a man appeared — appeared in the midst of the dread­ful storm which burst over the Black For­est. This man’s coun­te­nance is now known to thee; it is per­pet­u­ated in the other por­trait to which I directed thine attention.”“There is some­thing of a wild and fear­ful inter­est in the aspect of that man.” said Agnes, cast­ing a shud­der­ing glance behind her, and trem­bling lest the can­vas had burst into life, and the coun­te­nance whose lin­ea­ments were depicted thereon was peer­ing over her shoulder.

“Yes, and there was much of wild and fear­ful inter­est in his his­tory,” was the reply; “but of that I can­not speak—no, I dare not. Suf­fice it to say that he was a being pos­sessed of super­hu­man pow­ers, and that he prof­fered his ser­vices to the wretched—the abandoned—the deserted Wag­ner. He pro­posed to endow him with a new existence—to restore him to youth and manly beauty—to make him rich—to embell­ish his mind with won­drous attainments—to enable him to cast off the wrin­kles of age—-”“Holy Vir­gin! now I com­pre­hend it all!” shrieked Agnes, throw­ing her­self at the feet of her com­pan­ion: “and you—you—-”“I am Fer­nand Wag­ner!” he exclaimed, fold­ing her in his embrace.

“And can you par­don me, can you for­give my deep—deep ingrat­i­tude?” cried Agnes.

“Let us for­give each other!” said Wag­ner. “You can now under­stand the mean­ing of the inscrip­tion beneath my por­trait. ‘His last day thus’ sig­ni­fies that it was the last day on which I wore that aged, decrepit, and sink­ing form.”“But where­fore do you say, ‘Let us for­give each other?’” demanded Agnes, scarcely know­ing whether to rejoice or weep at the mar­velous trans­for­ma­tion of her grandsire.

“Did I not ere now inform thee that thou wast for­got­ten until acci­dent threw thee in my way to-​​night?” exclaimed Fer­nand. “I have wan­dered about the earth and beheld all the scenes which are rep­re­sented in those pictures—ay, and many oth­ers equally remark­able. For eigh­teen months I was the servant—and slave of him who con­ferred upon me this fatal
boon—-”

“At what price, then, have you pur­chased it?” asked Agnes, with a cold shudder.

…

From the scans of our copy of Wag­ner, the Wehr-​​Wolf by George W. M. Reynolds, c. 1875 — an edi­tion sub­stan­tially dif­fer­ent from that pro­duced by Dover.