The Prophet's Mantle by Edith Nesbit

It was a bright, perfectly clear, moonlight night, one of those nights in which there seems to be no atmosphere, in which the smallest architectural details of every building show with even a greater distinctness than in mid-sunshine. The great full moon and the vast unfathomable expanse overhead seemed to have cast a spell of their own peace over even London's unpeaceful heart. The streets were empty, for the night had worn itself away to the only hour at which they are really deserted.

The clocks had just expressed their different views on the subject of two A. M. The night was so clear that Alice Hatfield, though her eyes were smarting and aching, thought she could see the hands on the big clock of St Paul's as she came on to Blackfriars' Bridge. She walked slowly, and when she reached the second arch she stopped and leaned her elbows on the parapet. How still the night was! The tide was high, and had just started on its journey seawards; it seemed to flow in one unbroken sheet save for the stir and fret that it made round the supports of the bridge. The lights along the Embankment, with their perfect reflections, might have seemed almost Venetian to anyone inclined to take a more rose-coloured view of things than she. To her they only brought a maddening remembrance of the time when she -- not alone then -- had first seen them from the windows of the Arundel Hotel.