Recrimination once again. The Ulster Unionists and the SDLP have been busy blaming each other for the latest breakdown in the peace process. When he resigned as Deputy First Minister, Seamus Mallon laid the responsibility squarely at the door of UUP headquarters in Glengall Street.
Never a man to mince his words, he accused the unionists of attempting to "bleed this very process dry" by seeking more and more concessions from the British and Irish governments.
"They are dishonouring the agreement. They are insulting its principles." Stark charges, but it was clear the Newry-Armagh MP's patience was at an end. As far as he was concerned, every effort had been made to accommodate David Trimble and his friends in overcoming their "supposed difficulties". The pleadings of two prime ministers and an American president were not just spurned, "they have been scorned".
As bad political marriages go, the Trimble-Mallon partnership was surely one of the worst. While the UUP leader has been muted in his reaction to Mr Mallon's criticisms, some of his party colleagues are less reticent.
Relations had never been great, they said, but had turned decidedly icy last December in the negotiations on cross-Border bodies.
The fierce tension during that long-drawn-out saga has been forgotten by the general public, but politicians have longer memories, and unionists recall how "Mallon led a vicious attack on us".
Criticism of Trimble by his ministerial colleague in a Channel Four documentary did not go down well either. There was also constant UUP irritation with Mallon's characterisation of the unionist stance on disarmament as absolutist.
The party had moved from decommissioning before the formation of an executive to simultaneous delivery of "guns and government" but complained that it never got credit for this from Mr Mallon.
The focus on blaming the UUP rather than Sinn Fein in Mallon's Assembly speech was bitterly resented by the unionists. Clearly there was no expectation that Mr Trimble's announcement at Glengall Street would precipitate Mr Mallon's resignation.
In doing so, the SDLP man wrong-footed Trimble politically and put him in the way of a heavy media grilling.
On UTV, the formidable Mike Nesbitt wanted to know, not just how long Trimble would stay on as First Minister but whether he would now be returning his Nobel Peace Prize. "No, because I earned it and I am continuing to earn it," was his reply.
However, it would be a mistake to narrow the causes of the current crisis down to a personality clash between two politicians. The roots of the problem go much deeper.
The approach and technique and indeed the very involvement in such a high-profile way of the two prime ministers may have had more to do with the breakdown than the fact that neither David Trimble nor Seamus Mallon suffers fools gladly.
Nobody can dispute the commitment of Mr Blair and Mr Ahern to the process which was such as to silence the cynics with their charges of self-seeking and opportunism.
But did they go about it the right way? Mr Ahern helped to entrench the UUP in their "no guns, no government" stance by appearing to take a similarly hard line in his somewhat ambiguous Sunday Times interview of February 14th.
For a period the "spin" from Dublin was, if anything, harder than anything emanating from Glengall Street. Unionists were merely saying the IRA must carry out prior decommissioning, but Dublin was going one further by adding a forecast that this would take place.
This provided the basis for the abortive Hillsborough Declaration. Republicans are adamant that they never gave any indication to the two governments that prior decommissioning was on the cards. When the April 1st document was released, the republican hard men and women hit the roof.
The necessity for Mr Blair, in particular, to look good seems to have had more to do with the publication of the Hillsborough text than any likelihood of political success.
Old hands in the peace process believe if there had been a few more hours of negotiations, a better result could have been achieved and that the full truth about Hillsborough has yet to emerge. Having failed to "bounce" the IRA into prior decommissioning, the two governments seemed to reel back to a position of bringing unionism to heel.
Certainly there was more "give" on that side of the house, but Mr Trimble had painted himself into such a corner on the issue that it was incumbent on Sinn Fein to try and help him out. Again spin-doctoring served the peace process badly.
Mr Blair's talk of a seismic shift in the republican stance on arms oversold the position. It was noticeable that every time the Blair spin was being delivered to the media in the Castle Buildings press tent, a Sinn Fein spokesman was hovering nearby to pour cold water on the British government's message.
But there certainly was a change in Sinn Fein rhetoric which, in a movement where words can be a matter of life and death, signalled a deep underlying change of outlook.
The people who brought us two republican ceasefires were now pledging to use their best efforts to achieve total IRA decommissioning as part of the full implementation of the agreement.
Turning republicanism on to the constitutional road was on offer. Unionists and others were suspicious: beware the Greeks bearing gifts.
But there was certainly a compelling argument for the short-term formation of an executive to see whether the IRA was bluffing. Instead of refusing to come to Stormont on Thursday, Mr Trimble could have stayed away in a few weeks' time.
Pragmatic realists might argue it was an offer worth taking. But long-standing suspicion and fear of the enemy meant that, for unionists, it was a bridge too far. They wanted cast-iron guarantees that Sinn Fein could be removed from office if decommissioning didn't happen.
Now, with the possible involvement of Senator George Mitchell, the parties and governments will give it one more try.
Mr Trimble may have been trying to regain lost ground when he wrote in yesterday's News Letter: "We know that the process cannot work without Sinn Fein, but they must also realise that it cannot work without decommissioning."
Whether the Sinn Fein leadership is prepared to take the risk of repeating the offer it made at Castle Buildings is another matter. While trust was the major casualty of Black Thursday, the parties really have no alternative but to try again.