Ah, that's an interesting thought. I certainly thought the shadowy figure was Magnus wanting to help Isolda and losing his life doing so. Somehow, Dick sensed the danger and did not move to help her. He reflected on this:
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One thing I knew, which no one else would ever know, and that was why he had died. He had stretched out his hand to help Isolda in the snow. If instinct had warned him otherwise he had disregarded it, unlike myself, and therefore showed the greater courage.
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So I was accepting Dick's interpretation of what he had seen. I don't think Magnus was there as a temptation or as a warning to Dick; Dick was witnessing what had happened to Magnus.
And of course Dick needed to see this so that we, the readers, could also understand how the accident had happened.