[GrannyGrump]

Working with vintage fiction books -- I do often delete the word "chapter", but always do keep the numerals.

The one exception where I deleted the numerals also, was when it was actually a collection of short stories, not a novel.

For that very reason, in your example, the numerals will keep confusion to a minimum --- without those, the reader *might* surmise that it is a short story collection, and read the contents randomly.