The Pride of Eve by Warwick Deeping

Mrs. Buss had surrendered at last to Eve's persuasions, and a jobbing carpenter had erected a section-built shed in the back garden at Bosnia Road. The shed had a corrugated iron roof, and Mrs. Buss had stipulated that the roof should be painted a dull red, so that it might "tone" with the red brick houses. The studio was lined with matchboarding, had a skylight in the roof, and was fitted with an anthracite stove. The whole affair cost Eve about twenty-five pounds, with an additional two shillings added to the weekly rent of her rooms. She paid for the studio out of the money she had received from the sale of the furniture at Orchards Corner, and her capital had now dwindled to about forty-five pounds.

Every morning on her way towards Highbury Corner, Eve passed the end of Clarendon Grove, a road lined with sombre, semi-detached houses, whose front gardens were full of plane trees, ragged lilacs and privets, and scraggy laburnums. Eve, who was fairly punctual, passed the end of Clarendon Grove about a quarter to nine each morning, and there was another person who was just as punctual in quite a detached and unpremeditated way. Sometimes she saw him coming out of a gate about a hundred yards down Clarendon Grove, sometimes he was already turning the corner, or she saw his broad fat back just ahead of her, always on the same side of the street.