Thanks. Actually, this is the code defining scene breaks in the main document:
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;line-height:200%">#</p>
Of course, this is the original code from the htm converted document. The code I described above:
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;line-height:200%"> </p>
...is mostly at the end of chapters, or fills out the rest of the page in the front and back sections. I've removed some of them with no noticeable effect to the body, but I wondered if I needed anything after the final line in a section? I'm still developing and testing my stylesheets, but noticed some of the carryover code was taking precedence so I was trying to clean it down a bit before I linked all my CSS to the appropriate sections.