That the same hearse has been used several times in recent weeks to carry the coffins of murdered Catholics in Belfast exemplifies how relatively small and vulnerable that community feels at present.
The twisted logic of loyalist paramilitarism which dictated that killing random Catholics would cause the broad Catholic community to put pressure on the IRA to call a ceasefire is now being employed to provoke a breakdown of that ceasefire.
Yet to say that is to dignify the recent killings with method in their madness. On the contrary, the Provisional movement's grip is so strong that the ceasefire will survive almost any number of Catholic dead, even if it is set to end as the Provisionals' political designs founder on the rock of democratic principle.
Meanwhile, unionists remain sceptical about the operational independence of the INLA and the provenance of the Banbridge bomb.
Sinn Fein has made three fundamental mistakes. First, it sold the idea of a ceasefire to the IRA on the basis of imagined promises and a green-tinted misreading of incomplete drafts of the Framework Documents.
Second, it adopted both a concrete objection to the idea of an Assembly, which was always a central element to any agreement in the minds of everyone else, most especially the British and Irish governments, and a concrete demand for an end to British claims over Northern Ireland when the only jurisdictional claim destined to expire was that contained in Articles 2 and 3.
Instead, Sinn Fein should have simply refused to sign up to any internal settlement and sought to maximise its gains on the "equality" front.
Last, Sinn Fein assumed that with such bloodied hands and a such a suspect commitment to the Mitchell Principles, unionists would walk away from the talks, leaving the two governments to put forward a settlement plan very close to the Frameworks, knowing that any negotiated settlement would have to be diluted on the North-South axis if it was to be accepted by a majority on the unionist side. The UUP's continued presence, in the face of a torrent of opposition from other unionists, has destabilised republicanism.
Those within the Provisional movement with a more political bent have been shown up in front of their more military colleagues to have such faulty judgment as to have no political argument against a resumption of violence.
All three were understandable mistakes on the part of Sinn Fein. Less excusable was its misreading of constitutional nationalist feeling in the Republic. No amount of rhetorical republicanism could close the gap between the interests of the Southern State and the ambitions of a militant republicanism which, by contrast, feels it has nothing to lose, except face. The political wedges driven between North and South by the republican campaign of violence, even in the context of European integration and the economic and social permeation of the Border, are more permanent than Sinn Fein realised.
How wounding it must have been to read Bertie Ahern, in whom they had placed so much faith as self-professed "leader of nationalist Ireland", declaring only this month that "We have no interest in domination, in takeovers or participating in new undemocratic forms of government that are not accountable to all those who are governed".
Further, Sinn Fein has for years underestimated the native opposition to Irish unity within Northern Ireland, even as Britain emotionally disengaged from Ulster's cause.
It did not anticipate unionism's flexibility in a situation where the pro-British community was told by its political masters that they had "no selfish strategic or economic interest" in Northern Ireland, and its preparedness to unhook itself from Powellite conceptions of sovereignty and harness constitutional change throughout Great Britain, and modern European concepts of human rights and the protection of minorities, to its advantage.
The experience of participants in the 1992 talks was that the week at Lancaster House enabled more business to be done without the intrusions of constituency problems and domestic concerns, even if the lavishness of the surroundings was matched by an almost unprecedented security operation.
In 1992, of course, only four parties, the UUP, SDLP, DUP and Alliance, were represented. Again, it was Strand Two, North-South relations, on the agenda. Perhaps in some ways, though, the comparison should not be with 1992 but 1922 when Winston Churchill presided over the negotiations for the Craig-Collins Pact. Then, as now, as Churchill put it, "religious and partisan warfare . . . raging in the slums of Belfast, in the underworld of that city" dominated the discussions. But as Churchill also pointed out, by offering "the hope of co-operation between North and South", the Ulster unionist case was "strengthened before the whole world". Back in 1922, unionism was similarly presented with a North-South proposal not instinctively to its liking.
While unionists have been irritated by the length of the list of areas for potential co-operation in the "Background" paper, republicans will still have found the very banality of many of the suggestions rather detumescent. Unionists remain opposed to the Frameworks Documents - to which the governments had to pay pious obeisance on Tuesday - but there is room for manoeuvre so long as attention is paid to the practical outworking of the proposals. In case republicans should find the paper too appealing, they would be wise not to overlook the centrality of the heads of agreement.
There is now clearly no question of unaccountable, free-standing institutions with an internal dynamic towards unity.
For unionists, the most encouraging aspect of the current situation is Tony Blair's evident good faith and his continued commitment to the themes of his Belfast speech of May 1997 and to "sensible" cross-Border co-operation. Gerry Adams was left in no doubt about the pragmatism of the Prime Minister's approach during his recent trips to 10 Downing Street. For David Trimble, the prospect is that, as Churchill said, the offer by a unionist leader of the "hope of co-operation between North and South" will result again in London concluding that "all the more in consequence of this action, must our obligations and pledges to Ulster to secure and defend her soil if necessary be redoubled by what has taken place".
Steven King is special adviser to the UUP deputy leader, Mr John Taylor MP