The streets were empty. After the horrific deaths of the three Quinn children in the petrol-bomb attack on their Ballymoney home, residents of the nationalist community in Portadown were in turn shocked and angry.
Even when the Orange Order's deputy grand chaplain, the Rev William Bingham, called in a powerful sermon for the Portadown protesters to leave Drumcree hill, the sense of relief was muted.
After a week of fear that the Parades Commission decision would be overturned, residents could only look bereft at the photograph on television of the three smiling boys - Richard (10), Mark (9) and Jason (7).
The previous night there had been utter panic, when residents heard that the Orange Order had reapplied to the Parades Commission for its march to go down the Garvaghy road.
The talks had adjourned. The residents' chairman, Mr Breandan Mac Cionnaith, said the Orange Order's move was a "breach of good faith and very provocative".
A meeting had been called and, as people waited, speculation and rumour were rife. One man said that the talks at Armagh Civic Offices had given the Orange Order the excuse to say it had engaged in dialogue, a condition the commission had imposed.
The SDLP and Sinn Fein Assembly members Brid Rodgers and Francie Molloy tried to calm them. "The Orange Order are trying to panic people here into a reaction that will discredit you. Nothing has changed. They haven't gone into dialogue, they have only pretended to," said Mrs Rodgers.
Yesterday morning there were early signs that the Orange Order was pulling back. Protesters at Hillsborough Castle, the Northern Secretary's residence, had vowed to remain there until the march went down the Garvaghy Road. Yesterday, they laid three bouquets of flowers at the gate, ended their protest and marched away.
But, at Drumcree parish church, those of the well-dressed congregation at the Sunday morning service who spoke to reporters still believed that the parade should go down.
"It's very, very sad what happened," said one woman who declined to give her name. "It is a real tragedy, but the people who kept law and order for all these years, who were the victims of Sinn Fein/IRA terrorism, they're the ones being kept down now." Her husband said it was sad to see the police and army caught in the middle.
"So many police lost their lives, being victims of terrorism, and now they turn around and protect them. They have lost all their friends."
At the Catholic St John the Baptist Church on Garvaghy Road, Massgoers expressed their bitterness. Before news had filtered out of Mr Bingham's call for the protests to end, one Co Armagh farmer said there was "no way the Orangemen should be allowed down the road. I have no time for them".
"They stop Catholics from buying land. They've stopped me from buying land." As for IRA murders of Protestant farmers, he said: "The IRA only started 30 years ago. The Orange Order started 100 years ago."
Last night on Garvaghy Road people were waiting to see if there would be trouble at the bonfires, and if the Portadown lodge would call off its protest.
But the authorities were expecting things to be different in Portadown this year. The biggest bonfire in the Corcrain area was soaked in the torrential rain. "It's our understanding that the bonfires will not be lit tonight," an RUC spokesman said. They would not be lit until the Drumcree parade came down the Garvaghy Road. "So they'll rot," he said.
At Drumcree, a second moat had been built behind the water-filled trench that separated the Orangemen and loyalists from the soldiers and police.
There were no signs of the previous day's vicious taunts to the security forces. One man had shouted over at them: "I'm going to cut your wife's throat." Another said: "It's his children he's worried about."