The Abbess of Vlaye by Stanley J. Weyman

A few hours later the chateau of Villeneuve, buried in the lonely woods, wore a strange and unusual aspect.

To all things there comes an end, even to long silences and the march of uneventful years. Summer evening after summer evening had looked its last through darkening tree-tops on the house of Villeneuve, and marked but a spare taper burning here and there in its recesses. Winter evening after winter evening had fallen on the dripping woods and listened in vain for the sounds of revelry that had once beaconed the lost wayfarer, and held wolves doubting on the extremest edge of pasture. Night after night for well-nigh a generation -- with the one exception of the historic night of Coutras, when the pursuers feasted in its hall -- the house had stood shadowy and silent in the dim spaces of its clearing, and prowling beasts had haunted without fear its threshold. A rotten branch, falling in the depth of the forest, now scared more than its loudest orgy; nay, the dead lords, at rest in the decaying graveyard where the Abbey had stood, made as much impression on the night -- for often the will o' the wisp burned there -- as their fallen descendants in his darkling house.