"Yes," exclaimed Wagner, eagerly--and now manifesting, for the first time since the appearance of the fiend in his cell, any particular emotion: "I have need of _power!_--power to avert those evils into which my sad destiny may plunge me,--power to dominate instead of being subject to the opinions of mankind,--power to prove my complete innocence of the dreadful crime now imputed to me,--power to maintain an untarnished reputation, to which I cling most lovingly,--power, too," he added in a slower and also a more subdued tone--"power to restore the lost faculties of hearing and speech to her whom I love." Strange was the smile that curled the demon's lips as Wagner breathed these last words. "You require power--power almost without limit," said the fiend, after a few moments' pause; "and that aim is within thy reach. Handsome, intelligent, and rich," he continued, dwelling on each word with marked emphasis, "how happy may'st thou be when possessed of the power to render available, in all their glorious extent, the gifts--the qualities wherewith thou art already endowed! When in the service of Faust--during those eighteen months which expired at the hour of sunset on the thirtieth of July, 1517----" "Alas!" cried Wagner, his countenance expressing emotions of indescribable horror; "remind me not of that man's fate! Oh! never--never can I forget the mental agony--the profound and soul-felt anguish which he experienced, and which he strove not to conceal, when at the gate of Vienna on that evening he bade me farewell--forever."